Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #296: USWNT v Haiti recap

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Lots of crossing, a little bit shaky at the back, and Alex Morgan comes up big. Greg and Belz break down the action and promise to be more timely with the rest of the games in this tournament.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 SCuff podcast, where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hello, we're here to recap the U.S. women's 3-0 victory over Haiti in the first game of the Kaka-Kaf Championship. Apologies for the delay. I was traveling all day yesterday and couldn't watch until late last night. But from now on, we should be on a more regular schedule, Greg and me, recapping each game of this tournament, which will hopefully qualify us for both the 2023 Women's World Cup and the 2024 Olympics. top four finishers from this tournament go to the World Cup and the top finisher, the winner of the tournament overall, qualifies automatically for the Olympics. There's another way to get to the Olympics, but let's talk about that some other time.

Greg, how you doing? I'm okay, bells. It's strange. You know, we come on here and we tend to dive right into the soccer nerdery, but like it is, you know, tougher sometimes to just jump right into that and really get going when there are a lot of like sort of grim things happening in the world. And we don't usually get into the non-socker grim things, but now it's definitely, you know, I mean, it's always bleeding in, but now it's sort of bleeding in in a way that really needs to be talked about.

We've got the African Women's Cup of Nations going on right now, and an explosive player for Zambia has been ruled out of the tournament. It was reported for failing like a gender eligibility test due to high levels of naturally occurring testosterone. That's Barbara Bonda. She's, I think, 22 years old, came out of the scene last summer in the Olympics in Tokyo with games with back-to-back hat tricks for Zambia. So just this incredibly exciting player now ruled out of her host of Confederation's tournament due to high levels of testosterone. So it's just, again, like this stuff where we're policing women's bodies has now made its way fully into the soccer headline. And so just a tough, tough bit of news there. And then we had more of sort of random disappointment on the women's euros, which kick off today, where Spain's Alexeiaputeus has done her ACL.

So we're going to miss out on her participating in that tournament, which is, you know, not a manufactured evil, but just a fluke. Yeah, that's too bad for Pateles. And yeah, it's just like women have to have testosterone occurring in their bodies and for her to be disqualified for something that she doesn't have anything, any control over and required to make, you know, to take medicine that is by all accounts pretty unpleasant to take to to limit what is naturally happening in her body. It seems very odd and deeply unfair to her. So sucks. Yeah, it's bad. She'd originally been named to the team and then just sort of was quietly taken off of the roster going into their opening games without a report. So they drew their first game.

They have another game coming up. I'm like somehow hopeful that there will be enough of an outcry that they'll allow her back in to compete. But it's, yeah, it's just a frustrating thing. Zami didn't replace her that I know of they're carrying fewer players than allowed at the moment for this tournament. That tournament's about the running about the same time as the Concaf Championship, I assume. Yes, and then the Euro, again, the women's Euro is kicking off today as well. Yeah. So, yeah, some of the, some grim background in the soccer world to accommodate some of the grim stuff happening in the real world.

We will talk about the actual nerd stuff. I feel like that is part of escaping into tactics and personnel selections and things. And that's one of the reasons we do it. Escape, baby. All right. So speaking of escape, do you want to quickly say anything about the U-20s? Did you watch any of those games before we get into this game? Yes, that was some good escapism.

The 20s, the 20s looked like they could do some things. And it was nice because it felt like a real time trip back to kind of how this podcast all got started or for how a lot of people jumped in on it, which was the 2019. It was actually the winter fall of 2018 where the U-20s were playing their qualifying tournament, right? November. That's right. Yeah.

So it felt like a real trip down memory lane to see those kinds of games at that level of competition. And to see us put together some really good looking stuff. Yeah. And, you know, it's odd. You know, there's some debate about how good it was and out there on the internet. And I think that's fair. I think it's important to say it's not clear that any of these individual players is going to be a game changer for the national team.

I think what's impressive to me isn't so much scouting an individual player and saying this guy's going to change the face of American soccer for men. But it's more just the collective understanding between them and the on-ball quality and the ability to execute ideas in combination. that does seem different. Like there's a baseline, um, a baseline, um, uh, a baseline niceness across the board that seems to, that seemed to shine through that even,

you know, we did win the tournament in 2018 and that was really fun. Alex Mendez had a, had a brace in the win over Mexico in the championship game. But it wasn't quite as ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, as we were just throughout this tournament. So that's what I'm, that's, that's,

That's my position and I'm sticking to it. By the way, thank you to Joey and Matt and Vince for carrying a lot of the load down the stretch and recap in all those games. I thought Joey, who is a very young person, did an excellent job, excellent job sort of emceeing those episodes. And we appreciate him. And when he does need a letter of recommendation, Greg and I will write it to the University of Syracuse or Maryland or wherever he tries to go. to school to study broadcast journalism. No, a knockout cast that you put together for that tournament. And so we really appreciate all the work that those guys did.

Because it's not, I mean, it takes a lot to prepare for that to watch in detail and to be ready to enhance the experience for everyone else who's following along. Absolutely. All right. U.S. women's national team versus Haiti opening game of the tournament. The U.S. women are also undergoing something of a change of the guard. but it's not been nearly as rapid or complete as the one happening with the U.S. men's national team.

In fact, with the injury of Katerina Makario and the return of Megan Rapino, the team looks a lot more like it did in 2019 than it doesn't. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, it's definitely trying to, there's some clinging going on. I don't mean that. And it's not a bad way. These are, you know, world champion players clinging. So you give a lot.

I think you get a lot more latitude to that kind of clinging when their other hand is holding onto a couple of global trophies. And then when in the case of Alex Morgan, who has stepped in from Akario, scoring some couple of really nice goals and nearly scoring a couple other really nice goals. So she was on. She was feeling it that night. The lineup, I'll start with the lineup, it's Casey Murphy and goal, maybe a little bit of a surprised that she starts over a listener.

And Kelly O'Hara, I always say O'Hara, Kelly O'Hara, Alana Cook, Becky Sauerbrun, and Emily Fox across the back line from right to left. Andy Sullivan at the 6th, Rose Lavelle and Lindsay Horan as the 8th, and then Sophie Smith and Mal Pugh as the Wingers and Alex Morgan at Stryker. So it's, and it's hard to know here whether, you know, Vladko's really putting out his full first choice lineup. I think it's basically a lot of these players are definitely. Definitely the first choice lineup.

But like a Murphy Neyer thing, there could be a little bit of pre-rotation going here. I don't know. I mean, I kind of was surprised that Murphy started. I did think the Neier is Blatko's number one. But it could just be where he felt like, you know, Haiti wouldn't have that many chances anyway. And, you know, this is going to be a comfortable game for us. So we'll give her her minute tier. And then Neyer might get Mexico and Jamaica as the two tougher in name group stage opponents.

and then the knockout. So we'll have to see how that develops. Yeah, and maybe, I mean, the only other debatable things, I feel like in this lineup, if this were, in fact, a first choice lineup would be O'Hara over Huerta, maybe. Like, that's a, but O'Hara, I think, is probably hit Flacco's first choice, right? I think so for now. That feels like at best a coin toss for Huerta,

but I think it's probably leaning O'Hara. And then, you know, Horan over Sanchez, which is, I don't even know how debatable that is among the broader community. Probably not that debatable. It's Iran, isn't it? I think so, yes. And I think this is, again, just one that it's just, Iran's a really tough player to unseat.

So no matter how exciting Sanchez is, it seems like, you know, for now her role might just be come in at the 60th minute for either of those two. I mean, I guess it could be any center mid because you can do a little rotating once you make that choice. and then it's Sanchez's job to be super exciting and do things. And she was. For Haiti, it was, I think, pretty decent soccer team. Lara Sophia Larco and goal, probably the weakest link in this roster, honestly, for them. And definitely was in that game, yeah.

They were kind of undone by Larko a few times. The backline was, they were in a 4-4-10. 2, Chelsea Supri, Claire Constant, Ketna Luis, and Rutni Maturin, Mataran, across the back line from right to left, and then midfield 4 of Nerilia Mondesir, Jennifer Limage, Shirley Judy, and Bacheba, Luis across from right to left. And then the two strikers were Melshi Dail de Moucne, who is the 18-year-old Phenom who was totally electric in this game. And then Rosa Lord Borjella, the 29-year-old who scores a lot of goals for Haiti. And even Colin Dumorne, just one of two strikers, is underselling her involvement and

sort of command of the game for Haiti. I felt like she would just go wherever to be whatever Haiti needed in the moment. And she was fantastic to watch. Yeah, she feels like she could be any position she wants as a soccer player, including winger and number six. She was good at everything. So to the chronology, immediately the U.S. comes out and

starts pumping the ball into the box from wide. And I thought of you immediately, Greg. How are you feeling? This game just was not the game for me to enjoy the aesthetics. It was very much like we were committed.

If you listen to the Columbia Review, my whole thing was, we realized too much on hitting it from the wings. We need to be more intentional about playing through the middle into interior pockets and try to find those man city zones. And it just seemed like the emphasis was totally flipped, even from the Columbia friendly, where we did even less of the man city attacking and even more of the getting it wide and hitting it in. You mean on Monday night against Haiti, we did even less than we did against Columbia. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Less deliberate attacking through the middle. And part of this is, again, you know, Haiti set up to disqual. discourage that. I think I'd be going too far to say Haiti didn't allow it. I think they, you know, their setup tried to clog those areas, but I just felt like we never committed or attempted with any real intentionality to undo their setup through the center of the field. So my first like five timeline items are crosses that don't really do anything. And you skip the

first two. I think we had two in the first 60 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. So, so let's skip all Over that, sixth minute Dumonté beats Horan in a cage match in the center circle and then draws a foul 30 yards from goal. And I forget exactly who fouled her, but she's just a lot to deal with for the U.S., as Becky Sauerbrun would find out thoroughly later in the game. But in the seventh minute, they take the free kick, and it's a good one, a good set piece from Shirley Judi, curling over the back line from right to left, and it finds the head. of centerback,

Ketney-Louise, who nods it just wide of the far post. Murphy was beaten. She was rooted to the spot, but the header was, you know, a foot wide.

Could have been one zero right there. Yeah, and it was nothing complicated about it. There weren't any pick set or anything. It was just, uh, Louise just looked like Haran was the, was on her at the time of the kick,

and she just raced past Loran, or Horan and got up to head it totally unimpeded. So what's up? What's up with Haran here? What's going on, Lindsay? Yeah, just need a little bit more energy on our set piece defending there. A little more commitment to your mark. We get next two timeline items are Smith-fizzing one into the arms of Larco from wide.

Then Haran plays a hopeful ball to Morgan, gets cut out. 10th minute, Mallory Pew gets in behind on the ball and can't find a good pass. At least she's like, I thought of this as like, at least she's looking for a pass. You know, she doesn't actually, she gets closed down and her attempt to cross it, it gets deflected right into the arms of the goalkeeper. But at least she's, you know, she's got her head up and she's trying to find somebody to pick out as opposed to just whipping it in there. Yeah.

And this was the first, the first time we really got into the Man City space and it was Pew dribbling into it. And that was the trend of the night as well when we would get the first. there. It almost invariably came from a player just doing their player 1 v1 on the edge, which I don't think we attempted enough. I felt like the success of that was such that we should have been sort of focusing on that more. I wonder if that was a halftime message as well, because Midge Purs, as soon as she came in, did it, like, immediately. That's also just a thing that Midge Purs does. The other thing that was a little bit unique about Mow Pugh getting in behind

on that left side was that we didn't go down the left side very much at all. I didn't think. I thought everything was almost like if you did a super cut of all our progressive passes like 85% of them would just be Kelly O'Hara straight up the sideline to Sophia Smith. And we were in kind of an asymmetric setup in possession. Our formation was like a 315. And if you're doing some really advanced math there, you might think that we're missing a player. But it honestly to me, and I need to see why Scout's not updated yet. So I haven't done a full, like, dive into Emily Fox.

But it was like, Emily Fox wasn't on the field in possession for us, barely ever. It was everything was down the right. And maybe it's just because her job was to balance out the left side and we never felt we needed to swing it back over there. But it was like O'Hara and Cook and Sauerbrun stayed home as the three. And then Sullivan was one in front of her. And then we had sort of the five player front line as teams do nowadays. And then Emily Fox just out of the picture on the left side, not as like the attacking width necessarily. It's like a left-sided balance, but we just constantly were hitting it up O'Hara to

Sophia Smith hugging the line. And that's where I was like, this is just, we just are just repeating this over and over and over again with not that much joy coming from it, other than hitting a bunch of hopeful crosses. Well, also, Malpue and Sophia Smith were switching sides. So sometimes it'd be Pew over there. And I appreciated the way on the right side, there was plenty of interchangeability. sometimes it would be you know sometimes it would be

Levelle pinching out I mean getting out wide and then Pew or Smith would get into the channel and be sort of the target for the slipped pass and into the Man City zone sometimes even O'Hara would be out wide and you know

Lavelle would drop deeper so they were really doing a good job of sort of mixing it up and making it difficult for Haiti to get comfortable defending them and like you said that just that sort of direct pass up the line to whoever was hugging the

touch line seemed to work pretty well. We would get a, I mean, John Hurdman must have been really happy about it because we were getting all kinds of AVPs just from that.

Advanced platforms, a player running at the back line, a naked back line with the ball at her feet. Just from a straightforward pass of the line. I don't know. So, and this is where I talk about AVPs not all being created equal

because that's the one that sometimes teams will just allow you to have. Yeah. It's very much like you haven't broken up their amoeba or their organization at all. So you've got just gone from, you know, it's like basketball swinging around from the top of the key to a guy in the corner. If the defender's still there, you haven't really, you know, accomplished much. You're still have to keep working it around. And that's kind of what I thought it felt like.

And when you go around the side like that from O'Hara to the whoever that attacker is usually Sophia Smith out wide right on the sideline, You haven't forced the amoeba to collapse or really change shape at all. It just shifts, right? It's just an easy slide. You know, it wasn't putting O'Hara in behind into trouble areas. So I was actually kind of like frustrated with it as being the default progressive play. Because again, I'd rather see more passes into the interior, sharply executed that forced that defensive amoeba to, you know, collapse on itself. And then you can get it out wide.

So I thought we were playing a little bit overly simple. I think Rapino talked about, it might have been Rapino. It might have been Vladko after the game said that they maybe were showing Haiti too much respect. And that's what I felt like it was. Like I wanted those players to be more comfortable taking risks into the interior of the defense. Yeah. Well, the cross, you know, the sort of going at the defender wide and crossing did not yield results at a high percentage of the time. but it did sometimes because Alex Morgan was very good in her movement and in her in her

finishing frankly I mean like she was she was on like when it came to converting opportunities into very dangerous shots and the first one comes in the 11th 11th minute Smith beats Mataran 1v1 beats are kind of the way Tim way up beats people just got a little bit of a window to cross it and she crosses it well and Morgan does so well to peel off her marker and then just snapheader it back the way she came and it cracks the crossbar. Like that would have been a fantastic goal had it gone in. She had Larko completely beaten, but it does not quite go in. Excellent play, though, from her.

Yeah. Alex Warren was putting on a clinic here with basically with pitch control. We usually think of it in a defensive sense, like how much of the area of the field is a defender controlling. And usually in these scenarios in the box, when you don't have a numerical, advantage. The defenders are controlling way more of the pitch and the attackers. You know, if you see, if you ever see those software models showing it, like the attackers basically controlling like a four inch circle around their own bodies and that's it. The defenders have everything else. And this was like totally reversed for Alex Morgan in this game. Whenever they'd show the replay of the server about to hit the ball, you can just see that it's like, oh, they could put it here, here, here, or here for Alex Morgan on all of her attempts on goal. Her header here and then her two finishes. Like she just is in complete control of the space in the box. So good. Yeah, it was so impressive, such an impressive performance.

12th minute. We get a nice quick attack up the right side. This time it's O'Hara to Lavelle, who has swung wide at this point. And she drives down the line and slips it in the channel for Smith, who attempts to cross it and her cross is blocked for a corner kick. But I do like the sort of bang-bang nature of that move. And it's not, you know, Lavell's not happy to just, pump it in there from wide she

looks for Smith making the run. And that's exactly what I want to see more of. Is that level of like, okay, we've got them stretched a little with this rotation to get Lavel out and now we exploit their stretchedness to stretch them even further and put them on their heels

even more and make them have to really make some plays by finding a really dangerous player in the box. And in this case, Haiti made the play. I noticed a mistouch in the box from Horan on a good entry pass from Fox, one of our rare forays up the left side. Andy Sullivan in the 15th minute plays a decent ball over the top for Pew. It's just long, but it's an example of sort of that long distribution that I think

Sullivan doesn't necessarily get a lot of credit for. Yeah, that was the one where it bounced to the keeper came out and met it just before Pugh could get to it. And maybe if it were a World Cup game instead of the first game in qualifying, Pugh would have gone forward a little harder. Yeah. Maybe stick her studs into Larko's ribcage. 16th minute goal USA.

And this is, Pugh is on the right. We just get a patient spell of possession and O'Hara plays it wide to Pugh. and she has space to drive at the goal and hit a good cross. Very similar to the one that Smith hit earlier that Morgan snap-headed off the crossbar. This one is about knee-high, and Alex Morgan meets it with the outside of her left boot, just a deft, deft touch, down into the turf

just in front of the goal line and into the goal. This is the one where I don't really blame Larko too much. This is almost impossible to stop, right? I mean, it's such a good finish. Yep, just really good craft from Morgan. She didn't have to do much to control the space here for the cross, but she definitely has all of it.

Like Pew could have just passed ball into her feet, and she would have kind of done like a Macario-style post-up and continued play, but because it came in knee-high, a little hot, you know, Morgan's pretty much the only chance she has here is to direct it on goal, which she does. She's not even in the frame of goal, right? She's passed the goal towards the ball side, towards the near post.

So it's just a really, really clever decision, and then the execution, perfect. I mean, it's a world-class finish. Let's be honest. Fantastic. And I do think constant, the Haitian CB centerback is a little bit in no man's land for this one and for the previous one. So I know Morgan's getting a lot of credit for pitch control. I think Constant gets dinged a little bit for not being tighter to Morgan. For failure to control the pit, yes.

I mean, that is totally the case. And again, that's something that as we start to play, you know, higher level competition throughout this tournament, that's something that Morgan will have to work a lot harder if she's going to control even a little bit more or even a little bit of that area in the six. It was definitely was a little bit easier to get open in this game than I think it will be, come the knockouts. Yeah.

So we're up one zero. We're shelling the goal a little bit in the next, you know, about five minutes later. There's a Lavel cross that spills out to Smith and she gets a chance from about 16 yards and scuffs it. It kind of pings around. I think maybe Haran gets another crack at the goal. But we don't score. But on the ensuing corner kick, I think, or maybe it's a free kick. Free kick leads to a corner, I think.

It was a three minute long extended goal mouth scramble where kind of took a few cracks at it. And I kind of like that stood out to me. And then later on in the game, it kind of made me think of it again because a lot of things just felt like we were trying to win these scrambles, which we did. You know, we would get the edge on the scrambles. But it didn't always feel like what was happening was an intentional thing. Like, oh, well, we're trying to do this and we did it. It's like, we'll try to do this. And then Haiti might get a, you know, deflection.

And then we'll win the ensuing battle for that deflection. collection. So again, given what I think is the talent disparity here, I wish we were having more success, doing things that we were actually trying to do. And we'll get to one in the timeline in the second half that like really stood out for how slick it was relative to the rest of the game's, you know, lack of slickness. Okay. Well. Now let's talk about the goal. Yeah, let's talk about the second goal. So it's after all that scramble, scramble, The ball ends up with O'Hara on the right, and she cuts under her left foot and curls a ball to Morgan at about, you know, seven yards from goal. And Morgan rises and heads it over Larko, but not with any pace, you know, just kind of pops it over her.

And I think Larko just, I never really gets a good read on the flight of the ball. And it's in the net. And I feel like she should do better. The goalkeeper. should do better on that, right? Yeah, this is a positioning thing. I talked about this a little bit last pod, but for the women's keepers, you know, these players aren't six-eight the way every men's goalkeeper is.

So you might think, you know, when you see her two and a half, three yards off of her line as this cross is coming in, that that's just a normal place to be. But there's no way she can protect her crossbar from that far off the line, you know, the way that Tobolk Cotwa could. So, like, as that ball's coming in, if she's not going to come for it and actually win the ball in the air before Morgan's head can get there. She's got to drop back and get like her heels almost onto the goal line. And if she does that, Morgan's header is just like a looped ball that she catches at like

forehead height. Yeah. Because she's even two yards off of the line, like there is no play for her to make. It's done. As soon as it leaves her head with that trajectory coming from Morgan's forehead, uh, over her, like there's no getting to it for her. So it turns into a really, again, a good win from Morgan. But it's not that different from another header she has later in the game that does

just kind of loop harmlessly into the keeper's hands with no pace. It just, in this case, it happens to be that the keepers caught well over a line. I don't mind O'Hara's decision to cross here. This did come off of like a set piece where Haiti hadn't quite gotten their full shape back. It was one of those sort of mix-up moments where, you know, they're trying to get upfield because the initial ball had been cleared all the way out to O'Hara. But when they're doing that, they don't think about, is anyone covering the space that I'm leaving? and so O'Hare is crossing into a 3V3 in the box,

which you don't mind like a numbers even situation, especially when your attackers are the much better soccer players. So when you're crossing 3V3 into Alex Morgan, we will take that. And again, the centerbacks for Haiti not tight enough to Morgan. 2-0 and felt like a pretty comfortable lead at this point. But Haiti was going to make it interesting. 80 was going to make it interesting. I thought Smith was a little untidy through the first 25 minutes,

and I don't know that that assessment really changed through the first half. She did come off at halftime. Not her night, I wouldn't say. Yeah, and so this is where it's going to be, we're going to see how much weight Flatsco gives all these performances. I do think Smith was probably the worst attacker in this first half out of all of them, but I basically thought everyone, Barr Morgan, had a pretty below average outing.

Again, I thought Smith was sort of the worst out of all of them. And we're still kind of on a relative scale. It wasn't like shocking. It was just ineffective. You know, and in a game like this against Haiti, you're really hoping that it's not going to be ineffective. You're hoping it's going to be, you know, lights out exciting stuff. And I don't know if it's 97 degree weather.

I don't know if it's, you know, first game of the actual tournament. And maybe there's a little bit of nerves. A lot of these players, it's their first real, Concaf qualifying competition. But yeah, it was, I want to say Alex Morgan was the only U.S. player who had a actual good game. Yeah. That's my big, it's my big harsh criticism for a 3-0 US win that gets us three points closer to the World Cup. Casey and Murphy did really well on the Dumorne chance that we'll get to shortly, but I think so.

Morgan was so good though. I have to mention around the 31 minute mark, there's this extended shot of Emily Fox getting hydrated. Did you see that where it's just like a slow motion? It was unbelievable, interminable. And as Allie Wagner alluded to definitely shades of Landon Donovan at the Water Fountain back in 2001. The shot went on so long.

Ali Wagner was like, okay, okay, enough. It was really funny. If that was one of the men's players, Waki would, you know, Waki would have three videos up about it by now. It was definitely the longest she was on camera for the entire. I'm not really saying that she wasn't involved. But just again, I think somebody after the game said that Haiti's midfielder were playing differently, right side and left side.

So that might have been the reason that everything was going up away from Emily Fox aside. I don't think we were freezing out Emily Fox or that she was like out of position so not getting the ball. She was just really thirsty up until the 31st. In this case, yeah, she just was really thirsty. 35 minute mark, we get a good move up the right from Rose Lavelle driving in, slipping Pugh in as she darts from wide. And Pugh just kind of fizzes it across. The camera work on this was a little, they did the close-up right when she hits the cross.

It was kind of hard to tell what happened, but it didn't come off. And then 36-minute mark, we get a chance from Haiti. A ball from Ketna Luis is left by Bacheba Luis, the left midfielder. And it fools a lot of cook into getting caught upfield, and then Dumorne gathers it in front of Sauerbrun and then just annihilates her 1v1 at the edge of the box.

and she's one-on-one with the keeper. She tries to chip Murphy with her right foot, but Murphy closes hard and the shot cams off her chest. So what stands out to me here is that this is not like a transition goal. This wasn't like a transition chance for Haiti. Like they built this. They'd been kind of knocking around patiently, and they got Bejiva Lewis into the half-space pocket,

like that interior pocket that I'm hoping we can play into more often. and it's a good ball from a center back into that into that pocket it had you know Bichiba had gotten into a good space that sort of made it difficult to determine whether it was Atlanta Cook who should come with her or whether Horan needed to slide over as the center mid to account for in the end neither of them did so then you know cook is up there enough that she's out of position for de Morne running in 1 v1 against sourbrun and then yeah, sourbrun just gets absolutely dusted. And that's going to be another thing that we have to see how much Vlato waits this on

Sauerbrun kind of a couple of times in this game getting left left for dead here. I don't feel like anybody would not get dusted in that situation, but she definitely did. Yeah, it's just going to be a matter of like, could she have tried to, she had no real help from Cook. That's another thing. Cook wasn't coming back with any real urgency here. But could she have tried to shift her more towards Emily Fox, who was her help on her other side? Or is it just a matter of like Sal Brown not expecting to run into that level of technical quality

from Haiti? It was really beautiful from DeMorne. For, you know, in terms of like the highlights, it's a shame she didn't finish the chance. But, you know, we're glad she didn't. It was still two zero. And 37th minute, we get a nice little combo from Horan and Smith on the left wing. Smith hits a ball across that Lavelle cleverly, very cleverly redirects over the backline. So it's bouncing towards Lavelle in the box, and she just kind of volleys it with the top of her boot,

kind of flicks it over the back line for Morgan to head on goal. But Morgan was well offside. And for any of you old olds listening, this is that Dennis Burr Camp, Dennis Burkamp, 1998 World Cup, had that exact little top of the boot, just lift it up slightly, but take a lot of the sting out of it for your teammate. And this was the one that Morgan heads, and it's basically the same header that she scored on, but because the goalkeeper standing on her line, like, she just catches at her chest and it's no big deal. Yeah. Dunei, in the next incident sort of shows her quality again, it's the 40th minute, and this is when Hayes. wins a penalty.

Duane does Sauerbrun again, this time a little further away from goal, drives past her toward the box and slips Mondecier in behind. Now Mondecier is in on goal and she is fouled by a desperate Emily Fox, I'm sorry, Emily Fox, just inside the box, trying to slide to stop her and she, you know, she doesn't get the ball, she gets all Mondecere. It's a clear penalty. And then Borgella misses it off the post. to zero USA and you know given what had happened in the previous five minutes it could easily have

been two two so yeah and this yeah these were definitely like wake up calls and maybe even beyond that they might be they might be like messages again to vladco because this is sourbrun again and this is this is not just an like an age athleticism thing this was a decision too which you're hoping that at least sourbrun's you know savvy millions of caps would would play in here but her decision to actually lunge in and go to ground 45 yards from goal on Dumorne when she doesn't have to do that right there, right? Like she could just extend the play and stay involved in the play, but by gambling and going for like the slide and not even really coming close, now it's done. Now it's two on one against Fox. And then Fox misplays it as well because this, this,

Dumorne doesn't slide in Mondesir. Like she actually plays it out in across Fox's face, right? So Fox is doing well enough to keep this 2B1 outside of her. But she just gets her technique all wrong with her footwork and gets herself turned around. And that's how Montessier ends up behind her, even though the pass isn't behind Fox. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's true. It was across Fox's face. But Montessier had a lot of space to work with to keep driving forward before Fox could get to her.

And then the last incident of the first half was right before the 45-minute mark, Borjella gets red-carded initially for an aerial challenge with O'Hara, O'Hara. She nearly puts her studs in O'Hara's face and then rakes them down O'Hara's side. It did not seem malicious initially on replay, but she did do those things. And the refs decided she tried hard enough to pull out of the challenge that it should be a yellow card.

So, I mean, that was what VAR decided. So it was changed to a yellow card before play resumed. So I even want to say that it could have been more malicious, like if she had decided to really crack her in the face, she could have. But I don't know, when I was watching it, I swear on an extended angle from the sideline, like you see Borgello, like, leave her studs in and actually, as they're landing, like she rakes from down the side.

And then as they're landing, was it still on her hip? Like her foot follows Hoera away from her body long enough. And I'm like, oh, she's actually like, Now giving it a little oomph at the very end, just a little parting shot. Maybe. Just watch it again. And there's a very like, for me, unnatural little extension of the foot back into O'Hara as they're separating. In any event, I don't care that it was changed from red to yellow because while we do, you know, the priority here is the points, getting three points and qualifying for the World Cup.

This U.S. team is not like a finished product that just is going down to do a job. we're very much still in the process of learning how to play as this team. So I would have actually been more disappointed if the red had held up and we would have then had fewer opportunities to either learn what we're not good at or to execute the things that we are good at. So I'm actually, I was glad to see it stay 11 v. 11. Yeah, that's a good point. And I hadn't thought of it and I agree with you 100%.

Midge Purse comes on for Smith at the half. Like we said, it hadn't been super sharp. And purse is immediately pretty dynamic going at people. Why don't you take this next one in the 46th minute? So 45 seconds after the half starts. So this was good because we had an actual interior pocket pass, which I like to see. And it was the first one was Purse to Lavelle. So we work it up from O'Hara to Purs again, which, you know, that was the pattern.

but then purse finds Lavelle's feet in the middle. And that leads to nothing and it kind of gets cleared out by Haiti. But then right away again, we're building in the back and Cook has it and she finds she finds Lavelle. Yeah, so she finds Lavelle in that pocket again. And then Lavelle is able to slip purse wide. But because we've collapsed to the defense, Purse has a lot more room to operate. And that's like all I want.

Just make the defense shift a little bit before you go out to that space. And then Purs just absolutely skins her player. to get into that end-line space. And then I think her cutback is, well, her cutback's cleared. It's a dangerous ball. So it's not like she messed anything up. But then what stood out to me here is after the clearance, Kelly O'Hara just gets absolutely rinsed for 70 yards.

And that was another one that was like, oh, man, I don't know if this is a 97-degree weather, but this is right after half-time. So this isn't like the accumulation effect of she'd made a bunch of different runs that left her tired. De Mornay gets the ball, like outraces her to the ball, makes up like six yards in no time to get to the ball first, which is partly O'Hara, I'm sure partly a speed difference, but partly a bit naive from O'Hara to not cut off D'Morna's path because O'Hara had position and then Dumorne like just runs past her. And then what's more worrying is that O'Hara couldn't catch D'Morne when D'Morne was dribbling the ball for 50 yards from midfield all the way to the end line. and O'Hara never made up that ground.

Was that Alana Cook who closed her down or was it Sauerbrun? Who closed Dumaire down so she didn't, because she didn't really get a shot or a pass off. No, she just kind of dribbled over the end. Yeah, her cutback, I think it's blocked out for a corner, but you might be right that it did like a double deflection for a goal kick.

But yeah, I assume it was Cook now that you're saying that. Yeah, I think it was. Because Cook was that right centerback. And I don't know that O'Hara would have caught her either. But in any event, again, that's one of those. warning signs, not about like how this game's going to finish, but about whether some players might have more, might be more liabilities than we thought going in. Or it might just be that Dumae is just that good and that's going to happen anyone. I think, I think Flodko kind of tried

to protect the players by saying that, just saying sometimes world-class players may make plays. You mentioned the 97-degree weather, but we haven't said this yet. The game, the game was in Monterey in Mexico at Tigris's stadium. just which is a beautiful setting that there's mountains in the background and maybe the night game i think the night games will be a lot a lot cooler uh this was a this was a late afternoon game the also purse was why was purse so much more dynamic than smith like i think of them both is really good at taking people on one v one but purse was a lot better at it and maybe that had to do with the the opponent being worn down a

little bit by the first half. I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that either. It might have been, I really just don't think Smith tried it often enough. I wish you would have tried to take people on one view one more. Purse wasn't like 100% with her take-ons. It was just like, that was just good revenue for getting into that space. That was a good, good way to go about it, even if it wasn't going to work every time. Okay. All right. 48th minute we get a goal called back. This is another just really nice play from Alex Morgan. Becky Sowerbund run, we're knocking the ball around in the back.

Sauerbrun drives a ball at Pugh's Head in one of those little pockets of space you've been talking about, this one in the left channel. But it's hit firmly right at her head and she flicks it on from Morgan in behind. A really pretty deft flick header. Morgan runs onto it and takes it first time with her left foot

and just tomahawks it over Larko into the net from a difficult angle I don't know if Larko could have done better there but it didn't matter because Morgan was well outside when Pugh flicked it to her

so still 2.0 USA but yeah Morgan is not lacking confidence at the moment and Larko is having a pretty bad game I guess I see a shot from that angle unless it nestles

in the top upper or, you know, way, arcs way over her. I'm thinking, like, Larco should probably do better. Yeah, get a strong hand to it. I actually, I want to see how tall Larco is. She comes off as, like, as a short goalkeeper. Yeah, well, we don't know exactly how tall Larco is, but she's shorter than our goalkeepers,

and she grew up in Boccaratone, Florida, and played for Georgetown. So there you have it. She was playing short. Can I say that? She was playing short in this match. Yeah. Haiti's not too bad, I think,

And at this point in the game, they can't be too disappointed with their performance. The U.S. can't be too happy with theirs. Just Alex Morgan's having a hell of a game. And that's about it. I know there's more to it than that. I know there's more to it than that, Greg. But no, but Haiti were really, like, they were really organized. And again, we didn't carve them up nearly as often as we carved up Columbia.

So despite the two goals, you really do, they, Larka wasn't making saves, right? She wasn't standing on her head here. She'll make one later in the game. That's a great one. But for the most part, it's just been a couple of up-close wonder goals from Alex Morgan. Yeah. 58th minute, there's a penalty shout for the U.S. Mallory Pugh taken down from behind in the box. Seems clear to me and to the ref who points right at the spot.

But then she gets on the horn with VAR and they tell her, oh, wait, she was offside before she was fouled. So. Yeah. And given the, they'd overturned the red earlier, I was like, there's no way they can, there's no way they're going to overturn this,

right? Her ankle's stamped on while she's running in the box. So, uh, they got there, they got, they got bailed out by like an inch and a half offside.

Yep. We get a good left footed strike from purse cutting in from the right. That's deflected out for a corner. Nice to see that. And, um, Sanchez had come on in the 59th minute for Rose Lavel.

62 minute of, a good chance for you. Go ahead. Sorry. Even on that purse cut in and shot, like it was nice. Sanchez had just come on. And while purse is cutting in or even right before purse cut in almost opened it for the cut in. Sanchez makes a great darting run from into out, into that danger zone. I kind of wish purse would have actually used her to play it to her. But instead she used that to open up a little bit of a shooting window.

But it was good to see from Sanchez and then take it away for the next sequence. Yeah, this is Sanchez is off the bottom. and it's just really, really nice. And in the 62nd minute, we get a lovely move from the U.S. It's a pew cutting in from the right. She plays a firm left-footed ball on the ground to Morgan at the top of the box. In one of those Velazquez pockets of space, so silly to try it for me to try. It's a pocket of space.

And then Morgan takes one touch to control it, and Sanchez is seeing, she's seeing everything at this point and she makes a good curling run around the defender in behind and Morgan plays it to her with the outside of her left boot. Sanchez is in on goal. She shoots and it's well wide. Perhaps she should have whipped it across or slid it across for purse who I think was right in front of the goal but still a nice sequence from the U.S. Yeah, the sequence was great and this will, but it'll also lead to my like next complaint and that is for as much as I want us to get in the Man City's We're not very good when we do get in. And that was a theme against Columbia as well.

Like the decision making isn't always the best. And again, that's why I'd like to see more emphasis on this. Because for me, this is like the low hanging fruit. Like this is the easiest way to take a team that's already very good and make them, you know, whatever, unstoppable. Or like, you know, give them the best chance that a World Cup trophy is to be more efficient in these spaces. And so I do think like this is a no-brainer square on the floor to Mitch Purs who, talking about pitch control. She has the entire six to herself. There's a defender there, but the defender's on her weak side.

So there's no, like, away from the ball. So there's no pass that's going to get blocked. It's going to be the easiest tap in ever if we just have the wherewithal to slide it across. But the buildup leading to it, fantastic. I mean, yeah, and there's just a lot of soccer fans who think you got, you can't criticize a player for shooting in this case. And, you know, it seems like this debate comes up all the time. but I'm always

I'm always for the pass yeah I do think Larco was Larko was not demonstrating much resistance between the posts so if Sanchez had put it on frame

it probably goes in but yeah we can't we gotta live with principle we gotta live by principles here that did occur to me and it occurred to me even on purse's left footed shot from distance I was like all right

well when you're dealing with you know a keeper who's been struggling a little bit I can see just wanting to wall up one or see what happened. Yeah. All right. Mewis comes on for Haran, Huerta on for O'Hara in the 68th minute.

There's a nice ball. Another little warning shot from Haiti in the 69th minute. A nice ball from Supri to Borjella. And Borjellas gets on the ball in behind. But Alana Cook does well, in this case, to recover and win the ball and drive it out for a throw-in. It could have been a corner. her kick easily, but she did well there.

Rapino on for Pew at the 73 minute mark, and lots of cheers throughout the stadium. Kind of the loudest response from the fans at that stadium during the game, I guess aside from the goals. 76 minute mark, we're getting really close to the end, guys. Nice move from the U.S. Huerta to Sullivan. Sullivan turns and plays it past Morgan, who does. dummies it to Sanchez making another smart run in behind. You know, she's making the run, anticipating this basically as soon as Wyrta plays the

ball to Sullivan. And Sanchez flips it across to Rapino, who is going to be in on goal. She takes a poor touch, but then she rounds her defender and comes back onto her right foot and plays a lovely ball to the backpost for purse to tuck it home. Quite a nice ball and finish there. But Rapino was offside. on Sanchez's ball across. So no goal, still two zero USA.

But I'm going to love the buildup. So it's still another perfect look at what we can do when we do play it into defeat in the interior. So I was happy with this one. No real complaints. Wish Rapino would have had a nicer touch to have looked a little cleaner for her goal to be called back for allside.

But she definitely made up for it with the service afterward. Yeah. Now you were pretty hard on Rapino after the second Columbia friendly, how did you think she played in this game? I didn't think she was particularly great in this game either. And again, I know I'm coming in harsh. I don't think the like inconsistency that we saw from some of these attackers

is going to be a trend. I do think the heat probably played a part. The opening game of a tournament mentality kind of plays a part, I think. But I do just think it was a little, everything was a little bit rough. And that also applied to Rapino. Same thing here. You had the rough first touch. She does well after to make the delivery she makes.

But it was, you know, you want it to be cleaner. Like you want it to come off exactly how it sort of should in the best case. Yeah. And not just the sequence. I thought there were a couple other ones where Rapino was doing like some stuff that didn't have that wasn't high percentage or particularly high reward. And that's where I'm just like, oh, let's, if we're not going to do something that at least has high reward, Let's stick with high percentage stuff. Yeah.

Okay. 80th minute purse does get another chance on a nice little dink over the lines from Rapino. So there's a scramble after a goal kick. This seemed like fairly high percentage and high reward from Rapino. This was it. This was the player right there. This was an awesome ball from Rapino on like a little bouncing ball in. Yeah.

It's just sort of some soccer tennis in the center circle off of, off of a goal kick from Haiti. And it falls to Rapino. She dinks it over the line, over the back line. Purse is in on goal, but can't beat Larko. So this is probably the good save you're talking about Larko making here. Yep, this is Larko's best moment. It's a heavy touch from her second touch.

Perth ends up getting time for three touches here. First touch is good. Second touch is too far away from her, and that cuts down a lot of her shooting options. And Larko does really well now to come out and close. and purses third touches into Larko's body. I should also say Larko's distribution was another thing that was hurting Haiti here. Like she couldn't hit a ball out, right?

Like all of her goal kicks, all of her punts are all coming really short. And that really allowed us to keep turning the screw because Haiti, you know, when we do win this goal kick, we're 30 yards from goal instead of 55 yards from goal. So that was just another trend that Haiti were unable to really, you know, at any point just a relief pressure by at least putting the ball 65 yards away from the frame. And I don't know, so the third U.S. goal, I don't know if it came on one of those short clearances from Larko or not, but did it? No, it didn't.

This was, I've clipped this one out because this was another, for me, this was like another sourbrun issue. You're about to say how we scored a goal and I'm over here, like, complaining about what was happening 30 seconds before. Where we were kind of clumsy in the back a little bit. Yeah, I mean, this was, this was so bad. Like it started out, we won the ball back at our own box. And then it was just that back three Huerta had replaced O'Hara here.

So it's just Huerta, Cook, and Sauerbrun, just passing the ball between them in a line. I think Atlanta Cook set a record for a number of passes completed for U.S. player, I think, in this game, or came close to it. Because we were just passed in the back the whole time. Part of that is, again, because it's 97 degrees. Haiti, no, they're not going to win, but maintaining a good score differential is important to them if they're trying to get that third place. slot. So they were content to keep wasting clock and see this, like just let this game play out at 2-0. They'd take that in heartbeat. But in this case, like, we just are passing it between our back three over and over and over again. And eventually we do have kind of a little bit of a

mistouch, which Haiti, you know, sniffs out. And so you start to press it. And then we play it over to Sauerbrunn and they press that. And then we play it back over to cook. And now we, like Haiti now have three players in this between these passes up on our three players. And we're still doing this. We never go back to Casey Murphy to solve it. We just keep playing it. And they come in and take the ball from us. Like Haiti have the ball and they could run at our goal, but they also lose out on technique. And so we get it right back. And that's how we get it up to purse to start this play. Yeah, Huerta wins it back, right? And it. And then it purse kind of where to lose it and then Huerta wins it back. Yeah. But this is where this one for me stood out because it's another,

for me, it's like a sourbrun issue where if she's supposed to be like the leader and have all this veteran savvy, like she needs to recognize that this is starting to spiral and find the way to solve it instead of continuing to play this three player all in a foosball line. Like, there's no good spacing or angles here. We're totally horizontal. And we just never, never do anything to help ourselves until we lose the ball. And I was just like, how is this playing out right in front of us? Yeah, maybe a little bit of, you know, a lack of urgency, which is understandable, I guess, at this point in the game. Yeah, I'll give you that.

That's what it felt like, like some complacency here. Well, the goal comes. Enough of kvetching already, Greg. I'm going to kvetch about the goal sequence, too. I'm not done. All right. Well, it's, you know, after that, after Huerta wins it back, purse sort of drives forward and, you know, beats a couple of people.

And then we win the ball. I can't remember what happens here, doesn't it? It somehow ends up with Mewis on the left side. Yeah. So Purs plays it into Sanchez. I think it's Sanchez here who has a really nice flick back. Like it's really cute and I love that attempt. And I think that works well enough, but not all the way.

And I think, I don't know if it's Rapino and Mewis, but it ends up being more scramble ball. And this is where I go back to like none of this really came off the way we were trying to have it come off. Everything came with like deflections into Haiti's player's shins or Haiti actually like back. in full control of the ball right before it gets to Mewis finally, but they don't do anything with it either. And so eventually Mewis just ends up with it, but not through any kind of slick, fluid buildup. It's all very like pinball slop. And so then it ends up with Mewis, and even her cross doesn't go to our player, right? Like her cross gets headed out by a Haiti defender who just has a really bad clearing header and actually just softens it and cushions it five yards

away from her body right to Midge Purse, who has time to take a touch, size upper shot, smashes it home. Yep. But it's not going to be on it. It's like that whole sequence is not going to make any highlight compilation reels as like, you know, the beautiful game. No. It's kind of, you know, sometimes you have really beautiful attacking sequences that don't

result in goals and sometimes you get goals off of slop. I mean, that's, that happens for everybody. Don't get me wrong. Every good team needs to be a team that's capable of scoring goals in a sloppy fashion. You got to have that. And Christy Mewis won her battle out on the side after some sloppy play. She won the battle and left a Haiti player on the ground whilst she did it, which frees her up to, I guess, hit a hopeful ball into the box.

Not great. But then Midge Purse probably doing a good job of anticipating where a weak clearance might go, sets up shop, takes care of business. Yep. I think Larko gets a hand to it, but not. enough. I don't know, Sanchez, there's not much else to say. Sanchez was a spark, but I, you know, I thought that little back heel leave was a little bit profligate on her part because it just went right to a Haiti player. So a little inconsistent, also helpful in defense. I didn't think Iran was great either, so it's kind of, I don't have a strong take on that position. I mean, I think Lavelle should start for sure. Lavelle's great. And then the last thing I have is Mondeceer tries to catch Murphy out from distance with a 40-yarder.

And it nearly does, but hits it about five yards over the crossbar. And that's it. Yeah, we'll have to see again how much weight Vlato gives to like the performances here and how much he just sort of chalks it up as like first game stuff, heat. We took care of business. It was professional. Maybe a little complacency was sunk in or was present from the beginning. Some players, I think, are dealing with some, you know, nagging injuries.

Horan might not be fully healthy. But it's going to be, we're going to see, I think, even with the next lineup, what he sort of took from this game because it's Jamaica. And the other thing we haven't mentioned yet is an hour after, or three hours after we got done with our game, Jamaica finished off upsetting Mexico in Mexico. Yeah. Yep. All right.

So the U.S. plays Jamaica. Yeah. So we're playing Jamaica tomorrow already. And Jamaica now, this game probably decides the, well, it doesn't even go that far now. Because Jamaica upsets at Mexico, it's all going to be kind of wide open here. We need this result against Jamaica. But even that won't seal the group for us because of the now three team contest for first place. Our plan for now is to recap that on Friday morning and publish that sometime during the day.

So stick with us. and thanks for listening. We'll see ya.