Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #299: USWNT v Costa Rica recap

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

A much improved performance in the semifinals of the Concacaf Championship. Full timeline and not much else from Greg and Belz. 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. Hey, hey, the U.S. women beat Costa Rica 3-0 on Thursday night, booking their ticket to the Conca Calf Final on Sunday against Canada. The winner of that game qualifies automatically for the Olympics. Greg, how you doing? Good, Bell, so kind of this tournament has gone sort of along the historical narrative. So all preamble leading up to the Canada matchup, there was some sort of thought that, some of the concave teams would be a little bit more in the overachieving side of things.

It didn't turn out to be the case in this tournament. Well, that's not fair. That's not fair. Some of these teams did probably overachieve to even get where they were. Obviously, Mexico underachieved badly. The U.S. though, have been as dominant as they have been in past cycles. Yeah, and the final chapter of that dominance, that preamble dominance, I guess, was last night. we were I mean it was as dominant as any of the performances we've we've put on in this tournament the scoreline doesn't wasn't so wild or anything but Costa Rica was totally not going to score in this game I mean let's just I can just knock their shots out right now they had two shots in the match right they had a they had like a scramble after a set piece where they got like a deflected shot from the edge of the box no angle and then there's there that wasn't like the first 20 minutes and it's

And then their second shot came in the 95th minute after we made it 3-0, where they shot directly from the kickoff. Those were their two shots. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for knocking those out because I didn't remember either one. And I did think the U.S. played quite a bit better than they did against Mexico. At least there was a lot more energy. For sure.

Our wingers, it's just so fun to watch. Well, Roosevelt is so fun to watch. and it's just it's really fun to watch our wingers, Pew and Smith. They're, you know, they're not perfect or anything, but they're a lot of energy against the ball and then when they get on the ball, just so dynamic. I'm just going to say, I think last night's performance was a good sort of retroactive justification for how underwhelming we were against Mexico. I really do think it was a matter of like against Mexico knowing that the game was

meaningless and, you know, turning it into exercise or energy. conservation because in this game it was totally different and maybe Costa Rica just aren't as good as Mexico either and left themselves a little too exposed but yeah between the territorial dominance dominance and the actual quality of chance dominance this was a pretty complete performance from the US with still with some room for improvement is that an oxymoron can I say those two things side by side

I think you can yeah I think I know where you're going with that too All right, Casey Murphy and goal, Sophia Huerta, Alana Cook, Becky Sauerbrun, and Emily Sonnet across the back line. Andy Sullivan at the 6th, Rose Lavelle, and Lindsay Horan as the 8th, and then Sophia Smith, Alex Morgan, and Mallory Pugh across the front line. No big surprises there, I don't think. Like Casey Murphy and Sophia Huerta, I think were two like the coin tosses. So we saw who, at least for this game, Vladko, was leaning on. And again, because of the quality discrepancy between Costa Rica and Canada, and because of the temperature and the conditions of the tournament,

that could still be effectively, like, pre-rotating, even though it's a knockout game. So now we will see what the decision is against Canada. And I think that's really where there's no rotation issues here. Like, I think he's putting his best group out against Canada, the group he thinks is his best group. And Casey Murphy, maybe not as convincing as she needed to be if it is a close decision between those two, despite having very limited work to do. Not start against Canada and the two zero loss previous to this for them. So this idea that they're maybe saving their ammo for the third place game so that they can get into that playoff for the second Olympic spot from Conccaf.

does seem to hold some water. Noelia Bermudez, for instance, played for her first minutes of the tournament and goalkeeper for Costa Rica and was, let's just be honest, pretty bad in this game. Gabriela Guillen, Carl Sanchez, Sanchez, Mariana Benevides, Valeria del Campo Gutierrez,

Lixie Rodriguez were the five-woman backline, and then Emily Valenciano, Catherine Alvarado Shirley Cruz and Priscilla Chinchilla Chinchilla across the midfield band and then

Catalina Vanegas was the striker in this game their sort of danger woman Daphne Herrera was not in the starting line she did come on at half time to the timeline. Costa Rica is in a low

block and Ali Wagner the commentator notices that immediately and I just noticed that she's a excellent soccer color commentator. The thing that's, one thing that's disconcerting about her is how little she is on, I know I've mentioned this before, how little she is on the XG bandwagon.

She's talking about scoring goals as if it's a mystical, magical thing. The whole game. And I thought Greg's got to be tearing his hair out, listening to this. Well, I think that's the normal thing. It's an easy way to use, like,

shooting as narrative. And frankly, I kind of assumed that that was like she was one of yours. Like you guys were on the same finishing mystics group. Like you guys have meetings and you have a newsletter. And I kind of thought I was the outcast here. I mean, I thought I was the outcast. But I mostly just meme about it because I try to provide some sort of counterbalance.

But I'm so used to being in a world where people don't talk that way that it's, you know, It's just weird to hear it done so, so shamelessly. I mean, it was like Mallory Pugh. Mallory Pugh has to, you know, she elevated her game by scoring a goal at the end of the first half. And Alex Morgan was hard done by by not, not getting to start in that second game of the group so that she could keep up her goal scoring momentum. So it's a different way of talking about the game, I guess. The more normal way, I suppose.

But it does definitely stand out more now, I feel like, as the discourse around finishing has tended towards the analytical. Yeah. Well, we get a good sequence from the USA right off the bat. It's Sauerbrun to Sullivan through the lines to Lavelle, who gets just a touch and releases Huerta past and wide of Smith, who is also in the vicinity. and then Huerta slides it hard along the six and Morgan meets it there and tings it off the outside of the near post. So we're looking pretty sharp right off the bat, I thought. Yeah, and this is absolutely like the kind of attack that I know we're capable of

and want to see as much as possible. It's an absolute like hot knife through butter attacking moment. And again, you see the quality of Lavelle here because that ball into her isn't terribly precise, but she's still good enough to extend the attacking play. and hit that ball between the Costa Rica back line to allow our players who are excellent at racing downhill to race downhill.

And then great ball from Huerta, and we get an immediate glimpse into the finishing discourse because suddenly Alex Morgan isn't quite the elite finisher that she was two games prior. Right. It's because she didn't get to keep building momentum in the second game of the group. That's why.

So that's what it was? Okay, I see. I see. Yeah. It checks out. It checks out narratively. Right. Right, right, right.

Around the four minute mark, we get a nice little bit of combo work from Chinchilla and Cruz from Costa Rica. And then it's a little bit messy from Huerta, who's kind of bailed out by Cook, and we concede a corner kick. It's not that big of a moment. I just noticed, I think I noticed, like, one messy moment from Cook, a couple from Huerta, and one from Sullivan over the course of the game that just, I thought, bore mentioning and this is one of those that's it yeah I mean when when Costa Rica had as little to offer as they did

these these are the only ones that even stand out a little bit Sullivan the Sullivan moment I wanted to mention is she blasted at Sonnet in tight space it's not in tight space but she leads sonnet into an opponent and hits it at her way too hard

and it's a turnover and a quick foul from Sonnet so just a little ding on Sullivan there and then some real dings on Bermudez, the goalkeeper for Costa Rica. She gives it away in the buildup, passes it right to Mallory Pugh, and this will not be the last time Bermudez does this. Pew tries to play it at the back post and just kind of blasts it out of bounds. I don't know about the choice here. What did you think?

I was actually okay with it. So for me, the choice here is, you know, Pugh's path to the goals taken away by a defender. but we do have a little three on two here after this turnover from Bermudez and the centerback. So I think what happened was Bermuda slammed it into her centerbacks, her own centerbacks like thigh, 25 yards up the field, and it ricoches to Pugh. So now Morgan's coming over to Pugh. In their defense, Costa Rica centerback is rushing over to Morgan. And so Smith is all alone at the back post, and Pugh is trying to clip a ball to Smith unmarked at the back post. So I think the path makes sense.

This isn't like an attempt at just hopefully whipping it in. She just, it's just poor execution technically. Okay. All right. Yeah, I can see that. That's my read there. Yeah,

I can see that Smith is, Smith is arriving on marked. It's just, it would have been a, it's a difficult ball to connect on, I think. 10, 10 minute mark,

Horan does somebody on the left side and lifts across into the box. Huerta and Smith are both, sort of in position to head it and it's Huerta who gets to it and heads it wide. It did seem actually like Smith could have generated more power on her header there. Yes, Smith had the better angle. Either way, it's going to be a tough one to score from the distance they were at in the sort of loopingness of the cross.

This was a good one because it illustrated a couple of things on the sequence. One, a quick throw in from the U.S., which they were non-existent in the group stage. And again, I think that was a smart decision. But again, I wasn't sure if it was really like intentional or if it was just like we take our time on throw-ins. But here, you see now that we're out of the group stage and it's like knockout time, quick throw-in to get the ball back into play. And then, you know, nothing comes up, but it was just good to see that quick restart. Some good, a lot of cook distribution from the back as we build. She hit a nice long diagonal up field to her.

And then for me, the issue here with Horan, and we see it a few times in this game is a ton of times we have players who can just skin defenders, right? Horan absolutely dusts Costa Rica's right back to the point that she could drive like a bus up the end line to the near post if she just keeps attacking. And this is where I just, I don't understand that impulse we have to like cross it. Like the goal once you're trying to take this player one v one shouldn't be to create enough space to get a cross off. It should be like, if I can totally do this player, then I'm attacking the near post, forcing Costa Rica's shell in front of the goal to collapse onto me, and then hopefully opening that passing lane. So this is where I was just, I still feel like this is low-hanging fruit for us

to get away from that crossing impulse, that crossers brain we have, and really start attacking more into the space, forcing defenses to actually, you know, tip those dominoes over, and then see if we can slide a ball to somebody's feet. But maybe I'm just tilting windmills here. You might be, you might be. But I mean, it's hard to disagree with you. She did have room to make things, make more things happen. At this point, very clear that Costa Rica can't build out and Bermudez is going to be shaky.

One of your points, you mentioned Alana Cook's distribution. There's going to be like three or four more of those in this game. She's hitting a very useful long diagonal ball right now for the U.S. women's national team. And that's important because we're seeing it from Cook and we're seeing it from Germa when Germa's in the game. So at some point when Germa takes over for Sauerbrun, we're going to have two centerbacks who are pretty reliable at pinging that ball into gaps in the zone. And when you have the attacking weapons that we have, teams are going to be forced to collapse centrally or, you know, tighten up, which is going to leave those diagonals open. Yeah. Yeah.

And there was even like Lavelle, there was some missed opportunities on the long, like the long ball or at least seemed to me like an intelligent long pass because Rose Lavelle was making a sort of diagonal run from right to left into the box that went, she went unserved. a few times on that run that I noticed. I guess we can get into that later. Nice little bit in the 12th minute of skill from Alana Cook to one touch a pass wide to Huerta from Cook. I just noticed this because it was a pretty tricky moment. She gets a hospital ball from Sonnet across the field, and I can't remember which defender it was,

but a Costa Rican defender was closing pretty fast, and Cook was able to open up her body and just sort of guide, you know, glance, the ball over to Huerta win. A lot of times that's going to be, that's a turnover and it goes the other way. So I was impressed with that little moment from Alana Cook. Yeah, Sonnet definitely paying forward that Andy Sullivan passed from earlier where she puts, now Sonnet's the one putting the ball way out in front of Cook.

And then Cook doing a very good job of taking that bad, you know, that bad touch and actually putting us in position to punish Costa Rica for gambling on the steel. Yeah. It's one of those that's on its pass is just bad enough to actually end up being very good. There's a little bit of a mess from Cook and Murphy at the 14-minute mark that results in a corner kick. Cook heads it back to Murphy. But I don't know. I don't know.

Did you think Murphy should have been more alert to where that header was going to go? Or was it just too much of a header at too much pace for her to get to? there's a little, it was a mistake on somebody's part. Who's got the most fault? I think Murphy panics a little bit because the Costa Rica attacker is like, it's a long ball like up in the air and it bounces

and Cook heads it off the bounce. And the Costa Rica attacker never really angles herself to cook. She's always essentially pursuing the expected header back to Murphy. So she never slows down. So she's sprinting the entire time almost like at Murphy. So when Cook heads us back, Murphy's first step is almost like towards Cook and the header. And I wonder if she does that because she's getting a little nervous about this speedy Costa Rica player barreling down on her.

Because Murphy takes the wrong angle to the header, right? She shouldn't be coming out there. She should intercept it towards the end line where Cook heads it. So it's Murphy either misjudging the path of the header and getting her angle wrong to collect it. or that decision from Murphy is affected by her nerves with Costa Rica's attacker, closing her down. Okay. Okay. Wagner notes that Huerta misses a first time pass to Lavelle in a pocket of space.

Instead, she takes a touch and gives it away. This is right around the 15-minute mark. And it seems that Wagner was right. Huerta should have just quickly got it to Lavelle in that pocket, and that's how we get, that's how we get cooking against Costa Rica here. And I did not think Huerta was really that sharp in this game. She also didn't get a lot of, she also didn't get a lot of, we didn't get a lot of joy up the right side. And I'm not sure exactly why that was. Maybe it's because Costa Rica was taken it away from us, but not Huerta's best night, I didn't think. Yeah, way less involved. And I do

think part of that was because we tended to be attacking either more vertically or a lot of times directly off turnovers where we didn't have we didn't have time in a good way to like get into our shape because we turned them over and then we were immediately you know again running downhill onto the onto the 18 yard box okay yeah yeah I mean we we got a lot of um we got a lot of chance is given to us by Bermudez, too. 16th minute, Morgan fouls, gets fouled pretty hard, receiving the ball 40 yards from goal in the center of the park. And Mallory Pugh's set pieces just gorgeous,

and Morgan meets it unmarked with her left foot and glances it just wide. I'm not going to say should have scored here, but it's a pretty good chance. I'm going to incur to the wrath of everyone of the other side of the faction, not even on the finishing side, but this was totally a should have squared it situation for me. Oh yeah Which is just almost like Almost impossible to To really fault Morgan

For trying to score here But it's an incredibly difficult chance You know with the ball coming Almost like over her shoulder wide receiver style To also time it correctly To strike the ball on frame Like near impossible And then when you actually look at the sequence

Haran has beat her marker To the goal And I think it's Lavelle Who's beat her marker as well So you know Like Creating this chance is good. Creating it for Alex Morgan is great.

But when we start getting at the point where we have the wherewithal for Morgan and just like settle that ball to Iran to just tap it in, like that's when we are at the truly sublime level of attack. And I'm just like, I'm always just hopeful that we'll that will get to that point. Does anybody square that in that situation at any level of soccer? I mean, I do agree that it makes the most sense. But does it really happen ever? I think it makes me think of it kind of makes me think of the the rena layoff to Pfok yeah but that's what that's what it came to mind rena didn't have like the whole goal goal to shoot at either I don't think on his on his layoff but yeah that's probably true that's

probably true I'm sure I'm being harsh but I'm just like if we ever if we get one of those like that's where it's like people that that play a decision there to like set that down for Horan would have people, that would have people whooping. Yeah. We'd be whooping. For sure. Yeah, the composure and unselfishness of that is, uh, is, would be something to celebrate for sure.

Um, and, and the optimization. I know. So it's, it's really about optimization, right? Um, 1745 mark, we get another good combination from Smith, Morgan and Pew. Smith wins it off a Costa Rica throw. She just, she's just terrorized. that backline of Costa Rica with her pressing and her energy

and her, I guess, I think the intelligence of the way she comes at them. And she springs Morgan and then Morgan springs Pugh and behind it, we get a corner kick. Any thoughts on that one? So this turned into a trend and this was like, I mean, the best way

to beat a team's low block is to attack them before they can set up their low block. So like when you look at this throw in, Costa Rica, again, maybe a little bit naive here. playing against the U.S. in a knockout game to even spread themselves out as open as they were to take a throw-in, but they are like

expansive. And so, you know, when they turn it over, and throw-ins aren't high percentage plays if you're getting pressed like this. You know, like, so they're taking some risks here. And when we turn them over, it's four on two. So you know, Costa Rica's built on this low block and putting

nine players behind the ball. And so they shouldn't really be trying, they shouldn't be leaving themselves open for these situations where where they only have two back. So it was a good job of the U.S. to take advantage of these moments and create things from them because it's a lot easier than breaking down 10 players. Yeah. Right. Okay. 19th minute, another short corner scramble off of a poor Pew delivery. I think Pew kind of runs the ball down in zone 14 and plays a good pass to Sophia's

who's checking to her just inside the box. Smith plays a first time pass wide to Rose Lavelle, and Lavelle whips it across the six. It just misses Smith. Smith can't even quite make a play on it, but it just misses her. Then it misses an outstretched Alex Morgan, just barely.

And then it also misses Emily Sonet. I thought on replay it looked like Sonnet was pulled down by Valenciano as she was trying to get to it, but that was not called or even really commented on. in the broadcast. So no goal, but we're really knocking on the door at this point. It's funny to me. Yeah, real slick from Smith to hit that ball out to Lavelle, Lavelle all by yourself.

And then what I, again, getting into like nitpicking the execution in this last zone, this is one where like Lavelle fires it across. Yeah. And again, it's almost like that residual mentality from crossing where it's just like you've got to whip it in. Like this is just not a situation where we need to. whip it in. Our players have the whole space controlled.

You know, if you're doing a pitch control model here, so we just need to roll it across really easily to make the finish as easy as possible for anyone to step through and instead, again, just sort of fired across where no one can quite get the last touch. Yeah. It was

too hot. No doubt about it. Too hot, I said. But the knocking the knocking is good. The knocking we're doing here throughout this first 20 minutes, pretty solid. It doesn't seem like there's any doubt that the goal's coming. 26 minute, another good cook diagonal. This one to Pew from right to left.

Pew heads it behind for Horan, and she takes a shot that goes wide of the near post, but Horan was way outside, so we don't need to talk about it too much. I do just want to say, though, because I mentioned last time the differences between Horan as a center midfielder and Sanchez's a center midfielder, And one of them I said was that Sanchez makes a way more of like the slashing vertical runs off the ball early in the attack. Horan was doing a lot of that tonight.

She was. Again, I don't know if that's something that they're emphasizing or maybe I was just wrong. And that is totally a tendency of Horan. But it was definitely a thing that was happening a lot in this match. Yeah. Sorry. You're good. third minute, Pew wins it in the press,

kind of on her own. So she and Smith both doing a lot of work of this, of this nature. And she whips a ball across to Morgan. The shot is blocked off her foot as she slides at the near post. Just another, another little door knocking moment. Yeah, another door knocking moment, another chance to beat their low block before it can set up. and you can even tell because this ball gets to Morgan and it's a great chance, you know, straight away. But you also see like Sophia Smith all alone at the back post.

Like it's clear that when we can win this ball in this situation, we actually like are attacking with full numerical superiority. And so again, you just know Costa Rica is not going to be able to hang on much longer. Right. And they don't. 34th minute, 34th minute we get our goal. It's from the ensuing corner kick, and it's a good one from Mallory Pugh. Sullivan meets it from just outside the edge of the six, doing well to peel off her marker and come back away from the goal, and she scuffs it pretty thoroughly.

Her shot's not even really on frame, but it gets nearly deflected in by Carol Sanchez for an own goal as she tries to clear it, loops up. off the post and then it comes off the post with the funny bounce and sort of hits hits the ground and then um you know and then shoots back towards the middle of the of the goal mouth where Emily sonnet is the first to pounce and her first touch kind of rolls over the ball like she doesn't she can't quite get a shot off but as she goes to ground well while she's on the ground she kind of pushes it with the outside of her foot through the legs of a defender into the goal. Not pretty, but very deserved at that point.

1-0 USA. Yeah. I love this because, again, like, as much as I'm all about like this, you know, the fluid attacking play, you got to be able to score ugly too. There's a huge difference between the Mexico game where we did very little that was great and then scored an ugly goal in this game last night where we're doing a ton of things that are great and we score an ugly goal. Like that's what you want. You want to be doing a lot of good things.

And then when the ugly chance presents itself, you want to take advantage. there too. And this is an awesome situation for like any chalk nerds or again it's almost like pitch control stuff right, this scramble moment because you know the initial ball goes in

and you can just when you watch this you can just if you just focus on these set piece scrambles on one player throughout the whole play it's so interesting what you can see and if you do it if you watch it five or six times and focus on a different player each time like those little pitch control decisions

are really fascinating to me. And what you usually have is a lot of times there will be two or three, four players on set pieces whose body language just totally shuts off. They just stand straight up and watch if they're not in the immediate vicinity of the ball. And you have other players who are constantly doing

those little micro adjustments to their positioning to control more of the pitch that's around them just in case the ball happens to go in their vicinity. And that's what Sonnet's doing here. The whole time the plays happening with Sullivan at the far post, Sonnet's moving from the near post to sort of frame the scramble zone in front of the goalkeeper. And when she finally connects with the ball, you know, she's surrounded by five Costa Rica players, most of whom were not adjusting their position well during this play.

And that's how she ends up being the one to finish. And, you know, when people talk about set piece coaches, I think the U.S. men just hired one. I don't know if that coach is going to work with both teams or not. but it can be stuff like that. It doesn't just have to be Ted Lasso style like basketball inbound plays where they diagram the whole thing. It could literally just be putting more emphasis and instilling that sort of pitch control mentality

and employing it continuously throughout a set piece so that when there are scramble moments, you're just a little bit more likely to be in position to convert. And this, again, I'm such a nerd about this stuff and I love it. So it was fun to break this one down over and over again, despite how ugly the actual goal itself is. Yeah, I mean, a lot of credit to son it for, to, you know, being Johnny on the spot there.

I mean, to dumb it down just dramatically. Yeah, because it's not luck, right? That's a skill. It's totally a skill to be that player who it happens to fall to because you've done a lot of work to make sure it falls to you or that it's more likely to fall to you than anyone else. Right. Yeah, wasn't it like Larry Bird and Dennis Rodman always knew where the ball, where the basketball was going to go off the rim? Like a lot of players who played with both of them talked about that. Well, okay.

Another good cook diagonal in the 36 minute to Horan, who nods it on the bounce across. So in this case, we do get the, we do get the cushioned square with the header. and Morgan There it is What's that? I said there it is I mean that's I just I love the decision

It's a good decision Yeah Morgan Morgan left foot volleys it Home into the net But Horan was An arm offside Just barely offside

She was offside though No goal Another good example though Heran Heran making that initiation run Like she's doing She's keying the movement She's keying the play

With her movement And then another, like you said, another great cook ball into her. Yeah. As first half stoppage time comes on, we get Bermudez playing into the U.S. again, straight to Morgan, and she passes it to Smith, and Smith just hits it right at Bermudez. It's still 1-0, but that was basically a penalty kick from the run of play. 0.75 XG is my estimate. No, she took it from like 17 yards out, and the goalkeepers out at her 6th, doing really well to close.

the angle down. So good for Bermuda is to try to clean up her own mess. I mean, not that it would have mattered. She could have been standing on our line if the ball's hit straight at you. It's straight at you, huh? Yeah. Okay, 0.45 XG. We get the, so in the third minute of stoppage time,

we get the second U.S. goal. On the left side, Smith wins it in the press. So she's just harassing somebody. The ball squirts over to, who does it squirt over to? Lavelle. Rose Lavelle. And this time, Lavelle back heels Pugh, who's racing in behind.

So Pugh making a good run. Lavelle makes a really nice pass. And Pue takes a touch and then hits it hard with the instep of her left foot. And it glances off from Mudez's thigh, rifles into the side netting. 2.0 USA. How about Rose Lavelle, though? What a player. Yeah, I mean, it's brilliant.

And it's another great example of. of how much easier it is to play attractive soccer when you don't let the low block set itself up. So we just have better passing lanes. Costa Rica's back line isn't organized to have a good offside line going. So Lavelle has more room to execute an ingenious backheel into two runners.

Weren't there two players running onto it and Puget just happened to either one to take it? So, yeah, good moment. We won't get into the whether she should have squared it to Alex Morgan decision here. We're winning two zero. We're just selling it. Well, you know, she looked at Alex Morgan.

Did you notice that? Did you notice that in the replay, like in the celebration? She looks at Alex Morgan and she's kind of like, I know, I know, I should have passed it. I mean, that's how I read. I did some high eyebrows. I think it was like, for sure, because her shot went off the keeper, right? So it's like, it's like if that hadn't scored, I would have had some, I would have had some looks from you. I think that's for sure what the exchange was.

Yeah. At first I thought it was, it was really. Lavelle, she was smiling out like that, saying, what a pass, Rose. But no, she didn't even acknowledge the pass from Rose. I don't think. Not that I could tell. So half time comes. No subs for the U.S.

Greg, we got to crank through the second half real fast. Okay, okay, okay. Christine Granados comes on for Alvarado and Daphne Herrera for Chinchita. What do you think? So I think maybe Costa Rica is looking ahead to the third. third place match at that point. Again, it's the Russellback format for Olympic qualification. So they're kind of

just conceding the game at 2-0, knowing that they weren't threatening even a little bit. So I'm guessing, yeah, it's just let's just see if we can take care of business. In the third place game, take another crack at it against the U.S. or Canada for the last Olympic spot.

Now, 40, right after halftime, we get probably the ugliest moment from Casey Murphy of the game. Do you want to kind of take it and explain what happened? Okay, yeah. So I think my timeline's off here. I put it in the second half,

but it was actually stoppage time in the first half. So it's a ball that, like, is bouncing in, or it's a ball that's floated into our box. And as it's floating in, our defender, like, meets it with, like, her thigh. And so she kind of directs it towards our goal, or at least towards Murphy. So Murphy, like, panics again,

like, not knowing whether she can handle it or not. not because she's worried about it getting called for picking up a passback. But the touch isn't going into the goal anyway. It's going to go out of bounds. So even if that's what she thinks, like at that point, she should just let it go out of bounds and deal with the corner. Instead, she, like, keeps it alive but won't pick it up. So now she's juggling on the end line with Costa Rica player bearing down on her again.

And she like flails at the ball while juggling to try to clear it and just whiffs completely. And we have to clean up the mess. So for a game where she isn't being called on very much, this might raise some questions about whether or not she becomes too much of a liability or whether she's ready for these kinds of pressure moments. Hopefully they're just flukes and it won't mean anything, but it's not a good look for someone who's trying to win this job from the incumbent World Cup champion, a listener.

Right. Right. I think Wagner's take was that it was no. nerves and and then she also said that if Alex Morgan had started that second game of the group stage and scored a goal, then maybe Casey Murphy wouldn't have made this mistake. No, she didn't actually say that.

But pretty messy, pretty messy. 47th minute Pew hits a good cross after getting Croifton behind by Lindsay Horan. So I've been a little rough on Horan in this tournament, but she, I thought she had a nice game last night. It's chested out So Pugh's cross is good But it's chested out for a corner kick Smith was lurking at the back post

Yeah and she had she had Morgan I think she had two attackers Essentially sealing off their defender So it's not a bad A terrible decision to cross here or anything I still wish because she dusted her player 1V1 again to open up this cross And it's not like she just created enough room

To hit the ball through Like she created a lane into the box for herself. And again, I just wish we'd see a little bit more of that commitment to attacking into that space rather than just be like, oh, good, I can cross it now. That's what I'm going to do. Yeah. But one of these recordings, I'm going to lay off the crosses criticisms.

You go, what are you calling it? You're calling it something in the notes, which you haven't used, you haven't used the phrase yet. I'm calling it crosser's brain because it's like this weird, this impulse again where it's like it shouldn't be the case that as soon as you have you are in a position to cross it, you cross it. Like the cross should a lot of the times be sort of like the last, the last ditch thing. Like, oh, I don't have anything else to do.

I'm running out of space. All I can do is cross this ball. I mean, obviously not the case when you are, when you have a player in good position behind somebody, you know, that you can put it in that corridor for them. But too much for the U.S. it's like, no, the cross is like the goal. The goal is to get it to somebody who can cross it.

Again, even on this one I'm saying, she does have players she's picking out, so it's not just an aimless cross here. But overall, like I still do want to see more of that first priority to be like getting into the danger area of yourself and second thing being like, oh, I guess I could cross it. Well, speaking of crossing, I want to mention that Roosevelt had a couple crosses

shortly after this in around the 49-minute mark. One time she picks out Alex Morgan's feet from the left side, and there's a bit of a mix-up between Morgan and Smith. Who probably thought Morgan should have, whose back was to goal, should have just quickly laid it off to her, but Morgan did not, and then they just sort of both wanted the ball, and neither of them was able to do anything with it. Then, a few moments later, Lavelle, also from the left side,

lifts a ball to Horan at the penalty marker, or roughly at the penalty marker. And Horan heads it well wide and smiles ruefully to herself because it was a pretty good chance to put a good header on goal. But it just seems like Roosevelt at this point is able to pick out specific targets in the box with her crosses, which seems like an advanced skill to me. Yeah. And again, there are definitely, it's almost like case by case for those crosses.

And it's not just like, again, if it worked, it was a good one. And if it didn't work, it wasn't. there are definitely scenarios where it's like, oh, this is totally on. And, you know, the players at our level should be finding someone and picking someone out. And Lavelle is definitely a player who can do that when it's on. We get a nice ball from Pew in the 58th minute for Horan down the left wing. Pew had pulled to the sidelines. So there's a lot of rotation going on between our two-eighths and the wingers and even the fullbacks.

The less of that on the left side with Sonnet. Haran slides it on a platter to Smith on the back post. It's bouncing, but she just glances it wide of the post. Just glances it wide of the post. I'm going to go ahead and say she should have scored on this one. But she did have a good game. She did have a good game. Yep.

Yep. I'm marking it down as a successful attack. Successful build. A great decision by Horan, good positioning by Smith. and we want to just keep doing those things as often as possible. She had a great game. She should have scored here, though. That's the Bell's policy position on this.

59th minute poor Horan giveaway, playing it backward, launches a slight moment of forward thrust from Costa Rica, very short-lived, but this type of thing that would be punished by a better opponent. Horan's popping up again, picking the ball up, wide left, dribbles in towards the middle in the 61st minute, plays it

plays a pass to Rose Lavelle who's darting toward the near post. This is the one time where she made this diagonal run where she was rewarded for it. And the pass is slightly behind Lavelle. She turns and shoots with her right foot hits it right at Bermudez. I love the sequence. I love the buildup again.

Hitting the entry pass into Lavell's feet is just what I want to happen over and over again. It's awesome. I mean, one of the most fun things about watching the U.S. women play is how many of these sort of reps

you get to see in a game because we dominate the territory so much. So it's good to see that decision from Horan. And then I, yeah, I do kind of wish we would have done a little bit more soccering once the pass was a little behind her and she had to turn away from goal.

You do see the lane open up where she could, you know, use the threat of a shot to draw the attention to the defenders and then maybe slip Alex Morgan in. But again, this is why,

I like watching the U.S. women play so much is because there are so many chances to see where that concept of the extra pass could pay off for us and whether or not we'll sort of start to lean that way or if it's or if our mentality is still just more like no you get an open look you got to take your shot right then and there. Yeah, I was the thought that she should have slipped it to Morgan did cross my mind in real time watching the game but I thought well maybe she was offside I don't know but now that I I see your screenshot.

I'm like, yeah, she definitely should have passed it to Morgan. Definitely. The shot was, the shot was no trouble

for Bermudez. Rapino comes on for Pew, Ashley Sanchez on for Horan and Naomi Germa for Cook in the 63rd minute. And I would say the game was kind of, you know,

I think everybody just wanted to get out of there at this point. But. Yeah. The Germma for Cook is interesting to me because it could signal that Germann Cook are the

pair to start against Canada because that way neither of them is going a full 90 and they'll lead up to it or I could just be reading into things. Yeah. You should bring up that strange sequence where

that probably should have been a handball call. Can you talk about that? Yeah, Lavelle's got it in Central Midfield shaded to the right and she floats it to the left side of the box, where Rapino and Smith both challenging the air, the Costa Rica defender, who kind of goes up to challenge as well,

lands heavy kind of goes to ground, and the ball kind of just loops gently into her lap while she's laying flat on her back, and she, like, corrals it with her arms. And this is like, as Sophia Smith is, like, winding up to hit it on the volley, and then Sophia Smith has to stop because otherwise she would kick this player full in the stomach,

which she does generously, stop her windup. And the referee blows whistle and calls a foul. Nor would that be generous. She pulls back. And then she actually so she pulls back and then she just stops

and turns to the referee. And then so the referee stops the play with the whistle at that point and calls a foul on Sophia Smith, which is just a like would be an outrageous call in an actually competitive match that had meaning. But this match is no longer,

competitive so we can kind of just chuckle at how strange it all is. Yeah, what Christina Uncle's message was because she had called, she thought there was a foul before the handball, therefore there's no possibility of reviewing the handball. But I was like, what's the foul? Like the Costa Rican defender just fell on her own. I didn't see anything there. So if they wanted to, I feel like they could have, if the referees wanted to like find a way out of this, I feel like they could have judged.

judged Rapino for giving the player a little shove in the back as the ball was like floating into the box and that would get him off the hook for having to make a decision on the on the bizarre cradling of the ball yeah yeah it's it looked all wrong it looked all wrong um 74th minute lovely combination from Sanchez and Rapino they they do some good soccering uh Sanchez plays outside of the boot to Rapino and then um Rapino, well, yeah. And then Rapino kind of comes back along this touchline. It plays a clever little pass splitting two defenders to Sanchez, kind of make it

run on the channel. And then Sanchez works Lixie Rodriguez and then smashes a ball off a defender for a corner kick. Yeah, so the outcome is similar to some of our other crossing attempts, but the process to get there, I think, was markedly different and it was more of what I like to see, which is one, Sanchez's happy feet are just fun. But she does. She dust the first defender, right?

So it's not like she crosses the ball into that first defender. She works her and then continues to attack past her once she does. So she spins, she like gets her leaning the wrong way and then attacks beyond her, forces the other defenders to move over to her, which, you know, in the abstract, creates more room for our Alex Morgans and attackers in the box. And in this case, the outcome is still a deflection off that covering defender out of bounds. But the process, I think, is for me, like a better one than what some of our other decisions to cross were. Yeah, totally.

I mean, if somebody's going to take that open lane along the end line and go at it, it's on our team, it's going to be Sanchez. Trini Rodman comes on for Sophia Smith. Christy Mewis is on for Lavelle, both in the 81st minute. I know just two things I want to note before we get to the goal at the end. one, Rapino's lost a step, but she still is able to create danger on that left side, at least against Costa Rica, she was. She can get to the end line. She's able to get a good cross into the box. So I just want to say that. Also, I thought Trini Rodman had some nice moments of quick decisions in her cameo. There's one where in the 80, around the 87 minute mark where she lays it off nicely for Sullivan after Rapino.

lifts one across. And it's just a, it's just a quick decision. It's the right decision. Sullivan has a chance to uncork one from 18, 20 yards. And, you know, it doesn't, nothing really comes of it. But it's the, but I like that from Rodman. Yeah, I like the subtlety of it, right? Like, it's one of those things where, again, in my mind,

this is just her committing to the extra pass. Like, no mind to try to shoot this. Like, my job now is to create a shot for someone else. So a real, real like a gentle touch to just lay it down. And then she's immediately getting out of the way, which again is important to me watching. Because that's actually like good communication. So it's not like Sullivan will see it as maybe Rodman's trying to collect this herself. So I'm not going to run onto it.

By getting out of the way, she's signaling to Sullivan, this is you step into it and hit it. So all of those little, those are really little details. But it's great to see from a 20-year-old. Yeah. Yep, and then 95th minute we get our third goal, and it's Ashley Sanchez scoring. Christy Mewis plays a lumped ball pretty much into the box, and Morgan kind of brings it down, but it trickles over to Sanchez, who is next to her, and Sanchez swivels and whips it in off the side netting,

kind of, you know, on the bounce. The ball sits up nicely for her. you see the slow motion and Alex Morgan is yelling the word me at Sanchez as she shoots because Morgan wants to wants to take it she probably would have scored too I don't know

it's because of the swivel that that's why I was like Morgan's, Morgan's read on that is that Sanchez's hips are facing the wrong way and Morgan's facing forward so like by the textbook that would be Morgan's ball to run through since she's already facing the right way but because Sanchez has the swivel ability, she's able to score it herself.

It's a nice finish. It's fun to watch the replay to see the way her eyes are down, you know, the whole time until the ball is gone. Just like a, you know, just like a baseball player hitting a ball. She doesn't, she doesn't lift her eyes until the ball is well gone. And then she sees it, she sees it hit the net. So it's nice to, nice to count. She can already start celebrating.

What's that? Yeah, so by the time she looks up, she can already celebrate. Yeah. It's a, is a love, there's a thing of beauty to see a ball struck that way. So big game, big game on Sunday night. Canada also won 3-0. They beat Jamaica. Presumably, this game will be less comfortable than any of the four games we've played so far.

Right. It has to be. It's hard to imagine it being. I know Haiti in the opener surprised us a couple of times with some real good moments. But even then, you know, it wasn't like they surprised us like, oh, wow, we better, we better get her act together. But it never felt like Haiti was going to, you know, take over the game and beat us. And then that was the closest to anyone's even come. The other opponents just have offered very little to threaten.

And so I'm like legitimately hoping that Canada can put a little more of a test together. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be nice to win too, right? Yeah, yeah, I want them to test us, but we still win the game three zero and Sauerbrun gets to win. There we go. So we've had a lot of technical difficulties here. Hopefully that doesn't shine through. If you are able, please consider subscribing on Patreon. The link is in the show notes. And we just dropped our second historic USM&T recap. the one about the Columbia versus USA game at the 1994 World Cup.

It's a ridiculous episode. It's so long. And we don't get to the timeline until like 38 minutes in. But I think people are liking it. So, you know, sign up, check it out. 1994 was a busy year, it turns out. Yes. Yeah, it was a very busy year.

It's on so many fronts. All right. we'll be back on Monday to recap the final and thanks for listening. We'll see you.