Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #318: Japan v USA recap

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Hoo boy. Feels a little like 2019. Berhalter says we need centerbacks who can hold a high line but we couldn't establish a high line because we couldn't possess the ball in part because one of our centerbacks isn't a good passer. Add in a brutal performance from the midfield and this was a bad one. Mixed zone audio courtesy Sanjay Sujanthakumar.Join Scuffed on Patreon for as little as $2 a month: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedPatrons get a private feed for the Monday Review, which is, among other things, a run-down of club action for national team players every week with Watke and Vince and Belz. Patrons also get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalogue of historic recaps we're working on. Here's what we have so far.#1 Czechoslovakia v USA, 1990, https://www.patreon.com/posts/historic-recap-v-67067301#2 USA v Colombia, 1994, https://www.patreon.com/posts/historic-recap-2-69083229#3 USA v Iran, 1998, https://www.patreon.com/posts/historic-recap-3-70575704#4: Mexico v USA, 2002, https://www.patreon.com/posts/historic-recap-4-72235898 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. The U.S. lost two zero to Japan and a friendly in Dusseldorf this morning, and this was the second to last game before the World Cup. And I got to say, it was kind of alarming. Call the fire department. Greg? It was a mess. It was a huge mess.

And there definitely were fires put out a lot of the arsonists who were wearing our uniform. But yeah, it was not great. 12 dangerous giveaways in our half. Some were worse than others, but just a pandemic of profligacy in our defensive third. I was, you know, I was doing my notes as well on my own little timeline. It's nothing as comprehensive as your chronology, of course. You know, I'm like thinking I'm obviously note picking up on something here. And then when I scroll through the like online narrative after the game, no one.

This wasn't getting by anybody, right? Every single thing was like ESPN was posting the number of giveaways we had in our third. I saw a great graphic that showed that through World Cup qualifying, we had only allowed like eight shots on our own high turnovers. And in the first 45 minutes against Japan, we allowed six. So, yeah, this was, I mean, the theme of this game is pretty obvious. Yeah, and I mean, it does kind of bring to mind the 2019 loss to Mexico, three to zero in a friendly, you know, seems like ages ago,

but there was a, you know, sort of a big inquest after that one. Why are we trying to play out of the back at all costs with this group of players at this time against this opponent and, you know, giving up, just getting shelled as a result of it? It kind of came out over time that Berthelter said, essentially, we were just, that was a chance to work on our principles. and we sort of need to be more a little bit more savvy about when to play it long instead of trying to play out of the back.

But this felt a lot like that. Yeah, and if this was us trying to work on it, I don't know how much progress we made, to be honest, if this is us testing, whether or not this group of players can do it. I think a lot of people would say you might not have needed necessarily this test to demonstrate that,

but the results were pretty clear. Well, all right, Let's just get into the lineups and move forward. So Matt Turner and goal, no big surprise there. Sergenio Dest, Walker Zimmerman, Aaron Long, and Sam Vines across the back line. I guess there was some question. Was it going to be Vines or Scali at left back? It was vines.

And, you know, I don't think he wasn't really the problem tonight or I'm sorry this morning. Aaron Long was foretold yesterday that he's going to start. So no surprise there. Not that there isn't any consternation about it. And then Tyler Adams at 6, Luca Deloire and Weston McKinney as the 8th. And then Brennan Erinson, Jesus Ferreira, and Giovanni Raina across the front line. Yeah, Christian Pulisic out injured. It sounded like it was mostly precautionary.

And from what I think I gathered from what Twelman was saying, it would have been Raina making way for Pulisic. And again, probably a minutes restriction thing for Raina where he was only always going to go 45 in this game. So with Pulsigout, rain, I got the first 45 and then departed at halftime. Yeah. All four halftime subs were planned, according to Burrhalter, after the game. And then, um, Shuiji Ganda in goal for Japan, Hiroki Sakai, Maya Yoshida, Takahiro, Tamayasu, and Yuta Nakayama across the backline. Junya Ito, sort of a right winger, right midfielder, uh, Wataru,

Endo as the six. He was quite good in this game. Hitamasa Morita as the other midfielder, and then Takafusa Kubo as the left wing, and then Daichi Kamada and Dijan Maeda as the strikers. It's not about right. I think you got a spot on, bells. Okay. Let me play a Burrhalter clip real quick.

Let's just listen to it and, you know, respond as needed. Well, it was just we got to be better. You know, we weren't good enough. You know, easy plays were not completing. You know, there was, to me, I felt we were getting out-competed by Japan in the first half. And it was, okay, guys, you know, what do we want to do here? You know, it's hard to tell if this evaluation period or guys feel like they're being heavily evaluated and it's affecting them. but you know I think we need to play a personality we need to play relax we need to play intensity

and when we do these things we're a really good team um but when we don't we're an average team yeah a lot of talk about intensity and a lack of energy particularly in the first half what do you make of that sort of thing you know i feel like it's about as coherent as the way we played in that soccer game uh you know if we could if we can bring a relaxed intensity that'd be wonderful um but i'm not exactly sure what he's i mean i wish you would have gone into a little bit more than sort of the, that sort of catch-all, like, coach stuff of we got to want it more. You know, shades of Canada, 2019, where we lost Canada, and he was talking about a group of players not playing with enough fight.

And I know even way back then, we made the point that a lot of times that fight does come from the tactics. And it's no surprise that, like, the games that you want to point to where we had a ton of fight in the World Cup Qualvine cycle were against Mexico, where we didn't have this weird passive deliberate plotting play style. Like we were like, well, we will just turn this into a street fight. And it was a tactical choice as much as, you know, the guys got up for it. And today was a very like deliberate plotting throwback looking U.S.

men's national team. Throwback to like the early 2019 days. I don't know. I don't know how many of these clips we should listen to. but I have two more, if you don't mind, Greg, one from Adams and one from Zimmerman, both talking about this sort of a need to stretch their back line and, I don't know, essentially keep Japan honest in their press.

Yeah, I felt like we were just playing into Japan's end. We could have figured out quite easily that they were pressing us high. And the solution, I think, in the beginning of the game, was probably to play a little bit more direct, a little bit in behind to settle that. pressure have them think to drop off a little bit and create a little bit more space, a little bit more calmness on the ball. But yeah, it was difficult.

We didn't find solutions early on. Yeah, as the game went on, we started to find a little bit more solutions, but we just didn't create any clear-cut chances. And then here's Zimmerman. We played it into their pressure a good bit, and a lot of their chances came from our mistakes. So that's something that we obviously have to look back on and realize that we can't force it so much inside all the time. Special ins teams are put in a shape to make us do that. And maybe there

are times to make it stretch them and get them behind with some runs and behind a little more direct than some points in the game. Yeah. So both, I mean, those are kind of the two team leaders. They're sort of the spokesman of the team in a lot of ways. And they're both saying that. So clearly that's something they're talking about in the locker room that we need to just play along and keep Japan honest. What do you, what do you make of that? I mean, I think that is absolutely the case. And again, totally echoes that 2019 Mexico game where we refused to sort of play that direct pass. And it also, again, goes back to that whole centerback profile thing.

That was the big talk of the roster release, a big talk all week about the profile of being able to play a high line, being the most sort of valuable thing, disqualifying for anyone who can't do it, not just like, oh, well, we can test them out and see if they can do it just not quite as well as our high line centerbacks. No, they're gone. They can't be on the roster. They're not in the picture whatsoever. And so when you hear these guys saying,

we needed to play more direct. We needed to play fewer passes into the middle. Aaron Long's not a guy who's going to hit that pass. Aaron Long's a guy who's going to pass at one pass over. And even then, it's going to be a little bit shaky. And so you've got to hold his hand while you're trying to build out of there. So if we're going to play, if we're going to choose our centerbacks based on certain profiles, then we can't be surprised if they're totally lacking in the other area that the opponent forces us into when we can't execute.

that. I feel like it was the least surprising thing ever. We talked about this in the sound off right after the game, but you can't just drop a high line out of the sky and create a high line out of nothing. You have to actually possess the ball forward to have a high line. I'd love to see a Japan starting position, field position chart like tackle football does. And like where was Japan getting the ball? Because yeah, how do you build a high line when you constantly give it away in midfield or in your own third? There's never time to set Aaron Long up high to let him do his thing. And it was, I mean, he was basically killing us two ways, right? So he's not only not allowing us to progress the ball, but then he doesn't allow us to set our high line.

And it's not all just him. I mean, I know I'm hitting Aaron Long, but Tyler Adams had his giveaways to because he's not exactly a tremendous quarterback building out. So you have, but you have this where not only are we not able to get the ball forward. We are also by insisting to play these short passes, bringing Japan's best attacks to them. We're gifting them their best chances as well. So it was this total double whammy situation. Again, very similar to Mexico 2019. Does Musa solve it?

Kind of, right? I mean, he's at least partially solves it. Yeah, he improves it for sure. And it's like, I wish we didn't have to rely on that. I think what we got was a great video archive from Japan of how to solve it without having a Musa. Like Japan didn't beat our press by having one guy constantly. just shoulder someone and then race up field with the ball because he single-handedly dribbled the press.

They kept beating our press with coordinated movements and well-timed passing. And again, so that's also going to kind of hit back at any preemptive excuses about the field was a little dicey or international teams just can't play this way. Like Japan sure played that way when we were trying to press them on the rare occasions that we did have the ball up field. Yeah, they're good. We should be clear about that. They're a good team.

They're going to the World Cup. Let's hope they are. Let's hope they're very, very good. Yeah, I'm not saying they're like unbelievable. If not we made them look really good. I don't want to, I'm not trying to overstate it. I just say that this is a good opponent. It's just like all the teams at the World Cup are going to be good. And you got to play good soccer to beat them.

Or at least you got to get really lucky. And we didn't do either of those things. If having Moose on the field is the only way that we can like reliably break a press, it is kind of going to be kind of ironic that a player, developed in England is going to be the way that we change how the world views American soccer. Yeah, Musa feeding Sergino Dest is how we're going to change the way the world views American soccer. PFAC makes a late run into the roster, and it's Musa to Desk to Pfok's head. We beat England.

All right, timeline. Right away, we get a decent space for Luca Delatora down the right after he's released by Deskest. and, you know, I'm talking like 30 seconds in. He's running into space with the ball, and his cross just doesn't beat the first defender. And then sort of the positive moments in the timeline start to disappear for a while. So the first major giveaway is from Aaron Long. It's quite poor. He's trying to pass it to Sam Vines to his left.

Junio Ito picks it off, almost like a cornerback picking off a floated pass into the flat. and runs at Long, cuts in and has a shot with his left foot from the edge of the box. That's fortunately right at Matt Turner. And it's not, like you said, it's not that long was always the one giving it away. There's actually a wealth of blame to go around on that front,

but this giveaway was a theme throughout the game. Yeah, and it's one of those where, you know, within the discourse, we can think about what some players have been sort of run out of the team for. and this was a really bad moment for both long and for me, Sam Vines, and even a little bit Tyler Adams, because it's an underhit pass,

Sam Vines doesn't do long any favors by continuing to move away from it and expecting it to get to him rather than realizing that it's underhit and then solving it however he needs to, even if it means smashing it up diagonally up the field as Eto's coming to take it from us. And then Tyler Adams comes racing in

and badly overcommits as he meets Ido in the box, and that's how Ido gets the shot off. It gets a clear look at goal, and it's one of the few times Japan doesn't place a really good shot. Okay. Right at the three-minute mark, Ferreira drops in and receives a good pass from Walker Zimmerman.

So Walker Zimmerman, you know, he had a bad giveaway himself, but I noticed high-clock like three or four pretty nice line-breaking passes from him. And he also, I think he got a shout from Burrhalter for being a player, one of the players on the field who was competing for 90 minutes. I know you kind of discount all that sort of talk,

but I mean, Zimmerman was, he seemed locked in for the most part. Anyway, he plays a good pass to Ferreira's feet, dropping in. Ferreira's pass to Adams, kind of puts him in a tough spot. It pops up on him. Adams can't really deal with it, and it's another giveaway. Like, it didn't result in anything for Japan, but just sort of showed how our wheels were sort of spinning. Even when we had a good entry pass, we couldn't.

We couldn't get it together and move into the attacking phase. That was totally the case as well. So again, it did start with long mostly because like we said, Zimmerman had his one really bad giveaway that got picked off that would get to, I'm sure. But he also connected a half dozen lines splitting passes. It was very much also an issue. The next domino being that once that ball went into our central midfielder, their spacing looked nothing like what Japan's spacing looked like when they were doing that,

where you had this really slick layoff ready, where one option was already working in coordination with the next option. And then the next option up yield also in the right spot, like there was none of that. It was all, it was all trying to like solve the problem in real time. No coordination, no anticipation. It was very much just like, okay, ball went into McKinney's feet. He has no idea what options he has. So he's trying to like figure it out as he's receiving the ball instead of, again, that there was no rhythm, absolutely no rhythm whatsoever. Right after the four minute mark, there's a desk giveaway in the center circle. He's trying to make something happen, trying to dribble across.

Instead of playing this sort of easy pass to vines out wide, he tries to, he tries to force it through to Raina, which I support in general. But it gets cut out and by Wataru Endo Zimmerman's isolated wide left two passes later and does well to block Kamada's shot. I mean, another textbook case of no rhythm, right? I mean, this is desk just sort of going ISO. Yeah, and then eventually trying to give it to reyna, who I'm sure would have also gone ISO. So yeah. So, and then it ends with Zimmerman interceding, which becomes like the theme. And I do agree that he was the guy who was locked in.

And I think that's sort of why he is the player he is, is because he's always locked into what the next danger is going to be. Yeah, I'm glad to have him back there. I guess that's one positive to take from this game. Yeah, I know the narrative is going to kind of lump them together in some pockets. But I think long ends of the room, but I think they're totally different players and they performed at totally different levels in this game. Yeah, 100% agree. Eighth minute, we get our first big chance of the game. And as it turned out, probably our only big chance of the game.

It's actually a pretty nice bit of interplay. McKenney receives a pass in the center circle. It's not coordinated movement, but he sort of turns on the ball, plays a clever little outside of the boot pass into a pocket of space, you know, behind the. the midfield in front of the centerbacks for for rena and then reina plays a lovely pass out wide to dest um just a no just not a pass that is immediately evident when you see the ball come to him and desk gets the edge on kubo and lifts across into the box for ferrera the centerback had had sort of strayed closer than near post and ferrera was all alone he's at you know three yards from goal four yards from goal he can't quite get over the header

and it puts it over the bar. People will say it's all because he's not tall enough. I mean, like people were saying that in the Discord, he's just not tall enough. I'm like, I don't know. This seems like a little bit more of a timing thing than a height thing. But anyway, we don't talk about finishing too much on this. It's a combination.

Again, I've conceded many a time that, like, Jordan Pfock is for sure a better header of the soccer ball than Jesus Frere. So if you tell me right now, we're going to create one. chance in our next World Cup game and it's going to be a header, then I will gladly be like, oh, BFAC should be our starter. So if that's all we're going to create, that's it. PFAC should be the guy. Yeah, fair enough.

And sadly, that is all pretty much all we created. It sure is. Champion and Twelman discussed on the ESPN2 broadcast how poor the field was at this point in the game. And I do think it was actually not a great field. Didn't really help us. Unfortunately, it's not that much of an excuse because Japan was playing on the same. field and they were quite able to build out of the back and connect. Yeah, Japan just made us look naive.

I think it was, it had to be, it has to be humbling to have been trying to build this system that can play this kind of possession for as long as we've been doing it and then go in and look totally inept while Japan can just look real, real slick against us and our press, which we're starting to get proud of. Yeah, I don't think our press was really much of anything. fearsome today. Let me just play Westa McKinney from yesterday in the press conference. He was asked

about what to expect from Japan. Sometimes you play against teams that you haven't played against before that you've never experienced playing against. And I think this right here is definitely going to help us, I guess, diversify our play a little bit and

adapt to certain situations and certain game plays that we may not be familiar with. From Japan, I haven't really watched them a lot. Maybe Tyler can speak a little bit more than that. Are we not doing a little bit of research on our opponents before we play them? I mean, I know it's a friendly and everything, but. And it seems like they might have been paying attention to us because the way they set up, I think, really magnified our weaknesses, right?

It wasn't anything wild. I saw a bunch of people pointing this out too. I think I saw Lowry pointing out. They were basically just running a vanilla 442 press where they just, and they weren't like, it wasn't like a hair on fire kind of thing where they were chasing after us. They would sit back initially, let Zimmerman Long have the ball, and then wait until they made their choice. And if it was a weak choice or a poorly executed pass would tend to be like a short one, especially from Long. Then they would jump it. And that's when we would like not even always give it away.

I know there were a lot of turnovers, but it was mostly like, all right, then we play another pass and our options are even fewer because we're still going backwards or sideways. And then eventually it's like, all right, all we can do now is kind of clip it in and hope. that somebody in the in the mix can make something of it. But yeah, there was there was very few times where like we baited their press into something and then carved them up the other way. I noticed in 11th minute that Weston was eliminated pretty easily by one of those, you know, coordinated Japanese movements up the middle, sort of a pass and then a layoff and then they're moving forward.

It was great. I noticed that one too and I noticed it because it was so like I don't know if they intentionally were baiting. Adams up, but they brought Tyler Adams all the way up the field. He ended up manmarking like their six or chasing him up the field. And so then they split beyond him. And McKinney and Luca,

neither of them just showed like the urgency to fill that vacated space from Adams. And yeah, they just cut right through us. And it resulted in a Kubo shot that's blocked by Zimmerman, some good last ditch defending there. On the ensuing

scramble, we get But we get a, I think, so this was a really frustrating moment for me, and I clipped it. I don't know whether or where I will share it, but it's, Raina clips it out to Luca Deletore. Deletore is running up the right sideline, and he gets kind of caught, which is what he did sort of throughout the game. He'd sort of decide to stop. I felt like he was maybe worried he was going to get knocked off the ball. Gets kind of caught and then plays it backwards. to, I think, Dest, and then Desk plays it back to Turner, or somebody plays it back to

to Turner, and then Turner just shanks it out of bounds. So we turn, like, we have, like, all this forward momentum thanks to the quick decision from Raina to play that pass into space for Luca Deletore, but nothing, you know, instead of us, like, moving into the attack, we end up playing it back to a goalkeeper who's not great with his feet, and he kicks out of bounds. We're 13th minute, we're sort of knocking it around in the back without much purpose, and then Zim tries to force it. Zimmerman tries to force it to Aronson.

This is his one major giveaway. Kubo jumps the route and plays Kamada, Kamada into the box. Kamada shot is saved, I think, pretty comfortably by Turner. It's a high XG opportunity, but not a great attempt by Kamada. It's a big save, man. It's a tough one to get through. It's a really tight space. So especially when we're, the question around my only question,

question around Turner going into this game was, will he be affected by the rust? I know everyone everyone's kind of talking about our goalkeeper problem, but for me it's always just been an uncertainty rather than a real problem. We don't know if it's a problem yet. We hadn't seen Turner play without a bunch of games

in his recent past. So today we saw it. And I think he answered pretty quickly that his shot stopping is still his shot stopping. And that was that's the big takeaway because with Matt Turner and goal, man, this team can get to the knockout to you,

and if we can't accomplish much else. And he's said, you know, he's insisted repeatedly, and I think Berlter's also said this, that his training at Arsenal has made him a better goalkeeper in just in the last few months. Let's listen to a Turner clip real quick. They did a good job pressing us. They had a clear game plan.

They kind of knew what to expect. And it was almost like they were thinking a few things before us. And I think it took us too long to adapt to the game. But once we did, we had some really, good moments. And I think that overall, like, there's going to be times where we're suffering on the field and we have to be able to make adjustments on the fly. And I think that's the big lesson for today is we're going to have to be able to make those adjustments and move forward, move on, and get results. I like that idea of suffering on the field and having to figure it out on the

fly. I mean, because even if Burrhalter had done a great job setting the team up for this game, there's still the possibility that you have to do that, right? And it doesn't seem like we're very good at that right now. Yeah, you're always going to have those issues to sort out on the fly. It very much matters that we were bad at it. Like, I'm glad we got, I'm glad. I mean, I hope that we learn something from this. But it's not like, it's not like, oh, well, because we struggled like this,

now we're going to be good. Remember, after that 2019, Mexico lost in the friendly, like our next meaningful game was the Canada loss. So we didn't really take anything away from that Mexico lesson. that helped us against Canada, we had to eventually scrap several of the things we were doing altogether before our next match. So in-game solutions, I don't know, man. We made some changes at halftime,

but in the first half on the fly, we didn't really come up with much in the way of solutions. No. No, and I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a sophisticated enough soccer player myself to be able to do that. So I'm not going to criticize too much. But it'd be nice to see us, you know, figure something like that out in real time.

So I thought, I got to say, I thought Luca and Brendan both just kind of physically outmatched in this game. That they just have no, when I say cutting edge, I don't mean cutting edge in the final third. I mean cutting edge in the middle third or even in the defensive third. the cutting edge to eliminate somebody and move the ball forward, they didn't, I don't know that they did it ever, either one. No, I think in the call in after the show, I called it,

they don't have any presence on the ball. And Aronson, that was an issue for him all through qualifying, is that in the buildup, like as the ball comes to him, he doesn't have that, like, stature, that Wea, Musa and Raina all just play with such ease. Even McKinney, you know, obviously is a little looser than those other three.

but there were plenty of times in qualifying. It was just like, oh, he's the grown-up and he's toying with these children. And that is never the case with Aronson. Aronson is always on the verge of being, you know, completely destroyed physically, like, knocked to the ground. And he got knocked to the ground over and over again. And, you know, sometimes he gets a foul call. Sometimes he doesn't. But either way, he's never in a position where, like, as he's receiving the ball and he's about to get hit,

he's, like, going to regain control the situation and pick out the next pass. So it's like the best case is the rhythm's still going to be destroyed as he gets wrecked. And then maybe we'll take a free kick. But most likely we're having to retreat and go backwards. Yeah. Well, we and when it comes to Luca, we, I was at least very much in favor of him getting called up and played in World Cup qualifiers. I think the lingering doubt about him was is he, you know, is he up to the level up to the, up to like a higher level than Concord Calf qualifying? and I think that question continues to linger, you know, like, does he have the, does he have the athleticism to handle soccer at this level?

I thought, I was sort of optimistic about it, but this game makes me more pessimistic, I guess. Well, and that's going to be one of the issues here, you know, especially just focusing on this game is because so many of the things were working disharmine, disharmoniously, We'll go in. It's going to be hard for anyone to sort of positively and affirm any of those questions other than Matt Turner, who because we were bad, he got more chances to shine and he just shined like crazy. But yeah, it's going to be tough to really say, you know, Ferreric is definitely the guy at Stryker, right? It's going to be even hard to say Josh Sargent did a great job at Stryker because even though he got a little bit more to do and looked capable. It wasn't a game where we were clicking enough on any cylinders to really let somebody, like, like make their case for them.

And the issue, one of the big issues was, like our stronger players, like a Weston McKinney, wasn't, didn't look like he was all the way in it. And so we don't necessarily need to learn more about Weston McKinney, but he wasn't doing much to help other guys make their cases. Yeah, I don't know if we've hit that on the nose yet, but Weston was really bad in this game. He did have some, he did have some good moments here and there, as he always does. But just way too sloppy.

22nd minute Adams gets, Adams pass gets cut out. And he's hollering at his teammates because he needs more options and gesturing vigorously. And then 23rd minute, he has a sloppy giveaway trying to dribble out of a scramble on the edge of the box. And after a few passes, Edo beats vines and then slides it into the six just out of the reach of, was it myeda, I think. Yeah, kind of gotten in behind there and long there, caught long napping a little would be, One way of framing, the other way of framing it would be, you know, we were positioned just so that the only pass that could almost get to Edo couldn't quite get to him. That'd be the optimistic framing. Yeah, it didn't seem, the optimistic framing doesn't seem wildly off to me.

The 24th minute Japan scores. And at this point, the U.S. is frankly begging to be scored on. And yes, it happens. Long plays it into McKinney's feet in the center circle. So it actually starts with us emerging from a little rondo on the right touchline. And Adam's playing it to long in space. He has some time to sort of assess his options. He opts not to play wide to vines.

Instead, he sort of does a little reverse pass into the middle to McKinney. Maybe it took McKinney off guard a little bit, but his first time return pass is way where it is all get out. And it's pounced on. Japan moves into the attack quickly. Hitamasa Morita plays it wide to Daichi Kamada and he tucks it past Turner. There's a brief discussion of whether he's offside. VAR decides that he was not. And I guess it should be mentioned, Dest had pushed up a little bit and was late getting back.

So nobody really addressed Kamada. And we can interrogate the defense, but it's the giveaway from McKinney that really causes this goal, I think. Yeah. Yep. It's super sloppy from McKenney. It looked like he was just trying to bounce it back to Long because that was really his only choice. Dest was going and I don't think it was the wrong move from Dest. He'd recognized that in that little scramble on the right side, Japan had fallen asleep a little bit.

And so he started going to try to make that vertical run probably for Aaron Long to hit because Aaron Long was under no pressure. So your read as an attacker, you have a little bit of flexibility to make a run if you're in no immediate danger of losing the ball. So that should be fine. the pass happens as as he starts that run so he's out of the picture but either way yeah this is on McKinney and then recovery wise it's Adams again right well I don't know is that what's what's Adams culpability Adams over pursues again here where they're running at us and he's coming from the from the weak side he'd been on that right side for that Rondo and he overruns the play and gets cut badly so instead of forcing the the ball carrier farther

towards the end line, he lets him cut in to not just have his own shot, but then free up the runner who's arriving late right next to him on like a, you know, barely an underlap. And then that runner finds the weak side pass. So Zimmerman's probably cheated too far over. But Adam's getting beat that, that cleanly in this scenario is for me like the second worst aspect of this play after McKinney's giveaway. Because that's supposed to be Adam's strength, right? This is what we rely on him for is cleaning this kind of thing.

thing up. He's not supposed to go in and look this naive as Japan are running at us. Yeah. Okay. I know some listeners who will be very happy that you pointed that out. 18th minute, I forgot something in the 18th minute, which was Giovanni kind of taking over and moving the ball forward in the manner that I think we have come to expect from him and Musa with that presence, that physical presence that you were discussing. He kind of does a Croif combination with McKinney and then dribbles into the center circle. And we don't really get an attack out of it. But it was a nice little moment of like, okay, somebody out there can actually move the ball forward.

And I forgot to mention that. Just want to go back and say that. It's totally worth mentioning. And just because I remember clocking it as well and in real time watching the aftermath. So he does all that, like just pure. invincible geo-rena stuff, you know, riding a challenge for 15 yards. And then it's a, so then buys a space, right? He buys us time. So after he rides the challenge, does all the hard work, hits the ball to a player. Just in space, we can reset. And we proceed even with all

that space to immediately give the ball away again. And I'm like, oh, man, if there's going to be some rain of body language, it's going to be after him, like, solving everything for us, and then watching us immediately forfeit all the time and space he's created. Yeah. There was some, There was some rena body language one time when Long failed to hit in between the lines. But at that point, I'm sure Long was thinking, no way, man. No way am I trying that pass? Let's see. 28-minute mark finds it down the channel for Raina.

So we're trying to sort of stretch them a little bit. I don't know that Raina's the ideal guy for that job. But anyway, the long pass down the channel is cut out for a throw-in. West throws it into Raina, who wins a corner. The corner is good from Raina, but Ganda, the keeper for Japan, comes out and gets it. And I think kind of hurt his back, came off at the half. I don't know, maybe that was a plan substitution too. Bell, can the corner be good if the keeper comes out and collects it with his hands?

I thought it was a good action from the keeper. Okay. All right. That's fair. I'll give it to you. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't that good of a corner. 31 minute mark

Des does well tracking down a ball in the corner winning a cage match Just clock that Because anytime he does something good I want to note that We have a long giveaway Vines wins it back Then Vines gives it away

And Luca Della Torre Fowls Kubo in Zone 14 To prevent a bigger problem The ensuing free kick is I think saved fairly comfortably By Turner Is this an amazing save For some reason that I don't understand

Yeah, it's a great safe. This one is another one where, like, again, the long giveaway and then the Vine's subsequent giveaway, those are both pretty bad giveaways. And it goes back to like, what are we willing to tolerate? And at this point, Vines hasn't done much positive in this soccer game. So like the fact that he's contributed to two of the bad giveaways that have created some of the best Japan chances is not boating well because he's one of the big question marks here. right? We kind of just jumped right into the timeline, but whether or not Sam Vines is our backup left back is very much an open question. And that kind of sequence where he just isn't playing at the right speed of thought because he recovers this ball after the long giveaway with time to make a decision. And then, you know, sacrifice, gives away all of that time and gets the ball taken off of his feet.

So finding out who can play at that speed if we have anybody to back up Jedi was going to be important. and we might not really have the answer yet. I mean, Long is, I haven't looked at Twitter much since the game even started, but I'm sure Long is just getting bathed in fire on Twitter right now. I mean, he kind of has to be, right? He deserves it, yeah, he deserves it 100%. This is the question. If CCV had been healthy and gotten in this game and play and had the kind of giveaways that he had

with nothing sort of balancing it out the other way. And he'd be like, okay, he's not the guy. If he can't give us passing and he's actively hurting us with his passing, then we either need to completely change our system, which would be ironic given that he's in there supposedly as a profile fit, or we have to try somebody else. He can't be the guy. I wonder what Greg is,

what Greg Berthor is thinking about all this, what he's really thinking. I do think McKenzie was an improvement in the second half for what we're trying to do. I guess we'll get into that. It seemed like when we were, this is a 35th minute, we get another Adams giveaway. At this point,

I have counted 10 dangerous giveaways in our own half from eight different players. The worst were from Long, Zimmerman and Wes. And when we play into the channels or down the line, it's typically,

like there's not even anybody, it's not even anybody making the run or it's not even on. And it's cut out with a clearance that finds a Japanese player's feet in the middle of the field with time and space to turn. So we're just getting absolutely dominated at this point in the game.

In the 41st minute, we get a set piece on a free kick from the right touchline. Raina hits it back post to Zimmerman, who nods it back across, but it's cut out without much trouble. We get a nice little combination in the 44th minute. When Vines does get forward and does something positive, let's see, it's Adams wins it in in midfield to Ferrara, who brings it down and plays simple to Aronson. then Aronson plays it out wide to Raina, who kind of hesitates on the ball and taps it to the overlapping Vines. Vines plays a good ball, a pretty good ball into the mixer, but Ferreira gets kind of little brothered in the aerial duel.

On replay, I'm not sure any striker is going to get ahead on that, but I don't know. If it was there to be done, Ferreira probably not the guy to do it. I think that is, I mean, absolutely correct, right? So what I liked from that buildup was Frera's involvement early and then his ability to again get to the spot. But yes, he's not the guy who's going to control the pitch in an aerial duel. I'm all about pitch control. And Ferrer does have some clever movement in the box sometimes, but it's usually about the things he usually does well is to subtly move away from goal when the time calls for it to create a gap. It's not going to be to get a little physical leverage to win a half.

header where again we do have players who can do that so if this is the kind of chance we are going to create then then you know ferrera's not going to be the guy yeah okay half time comes sergeant comes on for ferrera uh jordan morris for giovanni reina mark mackenzie for erin long and regic canon for sergenio desd and like i said burhalter said afterward these were all planned substitutions Japan made a goalkeeper change. Daniel Schmidt comes on for Ganda, and then Hiroki Sakai comes on for, or goes off for Hiroki Ito at right back.

I wonder if Japan's goalkeepers are having like a real battle for the number one. I don't know anything about them. But we didn't do them any favors there either by putting zero shots on time. Yeah. Well, 47 minute mark, we had some good bill. build up back to front, right to left, basically everyone involved. McKinney sort of with an outsized roll in it and it gets all the way over to vines. We didn't actually create a chance from it, but I guess that's a testament to what this game was

like that I have just spent the last 45 seconds talking about the buildup because it was just so rare for us to combine, you know, six or seven passes through that Japanese press. Well, it was notable right away. And it would, you know, we know, I feel like what we noticed is, uh, Canon was a different kind of a right back than desk was. and that's why Vines ends up so high in the sequence because we kind of moved from a back two in buildup to a back to a back three was Canon being the stay at home right back,

even though he got forward in this play. But in the lead up to it, in the buildup early, I think that was the lesson. Even the very tail end of this, after that cross went all the way to Vines, we kind of reset. There was another little wrinkle, and that was Jordan Morris looking for that vertical run.

So right away, we see Morris with the faint back and then burst forward. And I think it might have been vines who'd worked back in possession to try to hit that long vertical diagonal. And Morris won it. I think Morris won it to Josh Sargent. And we got a little bit of a taste of the ball near the top of the box. So that was good to see, like right away to see the possession edge and then also to see

that vertical wrinkle because we hadn't been seeing too much of that in the first half. I think that was maybe the only time it worked, though. I mean, I'm not saying it's useless to do it, but we didn't, Morris didn't get a ton of joy off of that vertical wrinkle. I think we had like three of them that I marked down. One of them we got flagged for offside. Another one, he didn't win the ball, but by going up and pushing them back and then Japan gets like a weak header as he's challenging. And we clean up with a ton of space right there. And it might have been, I don't remember who cleaned up.

But suddenly we have the ball, you know, way up field. so we can still get to gain territory that way. And in a game where we were really struggling to gain territory, every little bit helps. Yeah. Plus, sorry, plus, in my head, I'm not thinking, oh, this is going to be what Jordan Morris brings us. In my head, I'm thinking Tim Wea will do this very well for us if we need him to.

Yeah. Boy, we miss Tim Wea, I think. I mean, he offers that verticality, he offers that physical presence. He offers that, like, intelligence on the ball and off it. I just feels like there's no contest. He's this, he's, I know you, I know you want to start rain. I'm Pulisic, but I think that's where I am, but, but I'm sure we'll get into later whether or not it's possible, whether we'll even get to test out, whether it's possible to run all

three of them at the same time. Yeah, let's do get into that. Nice interplay at the 50 minute mark in Japan's defensive third from Weston and Aronson. Aronson tries a little back heel that just misses Weston on the edge of the box but falls to Luca Deletori, who's a little surprised that the ball got to him and his shot from the edge of the box is, I think, slower than it could have been and it's blocked. Luca, we got almost nothing from him. This was another good moment of our press, of us being able to competently create something by making Japan play through us. So Japan played through us plenty of times, but there were some times where, like, we caught them.

We forced a mistake. And, again, we need to have those moments, which you can't have if you're constantly giving the ball away in your own half. On the other side from Morris, we did in the 55th minute have a sergeant making a nice run down the channel and McKenzie playing a decent ball to him. Sergeant tracks it down and holds it up for everybody to join in the attack. Again, didn't really come to anything, but it seemed like a promising pattern of play. Real quick, I'll just throw one more in that we skipped over, and that's the 52nd minute where Aronson's calf just gets absolutely stomped. Oh, yeah. I'll say this.

If there's something about Brendan Aronson's appearance that makes teams want to hurt him badly, like, I mean, we saw Mexico do it in World Cup qualifying, and then we just saw this against Japan. And I don't know if these guys have ever played together. So I don't know if there's any, you know, there's no. heat in the rivalry the way there is for Mexico. But if teams are like compelled to smash into Aronson, maybe he'll be good for drawing a couple of red cards in Qatar. Maybe, yeah.

Junio Ito, the guy who did, Junio, the guy who did it, plays for Reims in Liga-A-A-A-A-A. I don't think he and Aronson have any history. Okay. Let's see, bad giveaway from Wes and our, in our defensive third he tries to lay off a pass from Zimmerman

but kind of just blindly I don't know who he's going for and they're off to the races again two passes later Edo has a shot and we get another Turner save. Good switch from McKinney to Vines in the 57th minute so

Wes gets another good line breaking pass from Zimmerman and this time he switches it out to Vines I can't I don't think anything came of this either, but no, it ends up at Aronson and Aronson kind of just gets toppled. Oh, yeah. It's just another one of those. At this point, I was just like, I will be very curious to see it, but I'm not expecting

Aronson's on ball comp to look very good or to be too impressive. And it's just what we've talked about. There just isn't that physical presence of any real hope that he's going to actually hold somebody off. And we didn't see any of the stuff that he'd shown in the June window and stuff that we've seen at times for Leeds where he shakes a guy. as the ball comes to him and then, you know, gets to race up field. And I don't know if that's because he's still mostly doing that in like transition moments

and we didn't have a lot of those. Or if it's the field or if it's just not really going to be who he is. Yeah. Or just like an off day for Brendan. I do that too. Yeah. But he's never felt like a player who you give him the ball and he's going to beat somebody, to me at least.

I know he can shake some people. in the middle of the pitch in certain ways. Yeah, it just turned out not to be a good game to suit him because we weren't doing a lot of really good coordination because he can do that too, right? He can move a ball and then he wants to move afterwards. He's an excitable player, right? So we weren't doing any of that, so he didn't get to show that off.

And then we weren't able to set up and press very often, so we didn't get to show that very much either. So it was just kind of the game just played out where none of his strengths were going to be showcased. We get a McKenzie, well, Luca Delooria got a yellow in the 60th minute, 65th minute we get a McKenzie giveaway, so he gets in on the fun. And there's a great save by Matt Turner on Kamada, cutting in on Cannon from the left and hitting it with his right.

I mean, Turner got just a fingertip to it, pushed it just wide of the post. That was going in if he didn't get to it. Matt Turner's quite good. I feel like the, again, this whole game was a victory lap for the stats nerds because Matt Turner, very good at goalkeeping. So we get Tillman and Cardoso on for McKinney and Deletore in the 67th minute. Japan brings on Rizzo, Doan, and Mitoma for Kubo and Ito. 69th minute, nice ball down the line from McKenzie to Vines.

So this is another example of how when McKenzie's out there, you just get a little bit more elegance, a little bit more range in the passing. and it does, you know, it does open things up quite a bit. And I, you know, every Twitter account in America has been talking about that about how long is deficient in that way for the past six months. And you really saw the contrast, I thought, today. Right. So even though McKenzie had a couple of oopsies, at the very least, we'd like to balance those out

with some good positive plays. And then maybe, just maybe, we actually go with like our even better passing centerback. in these situations to see if we can actually get some real AVP revenue out of them. Yeah. That ship maybe has sailed, though. The ship that you're referring to is the USS John Brooks. And if Brooks isn't playing soccer like he hasn't really been, then I think the next best version of it would be Tim Rhee, who is playing soccer.

Yeah, I mean, the pressure on Burrhalter for those decisions. decisions leaving out Ream, Brooks, and Pfok certainly is not going to lessen after this performance today. I don't know how much pressure there is about Brooks, to be honest, at this point, but there's a little bit. McKenzie wins a header in the 70th minute but accidentally flicks it on for Japan, and then we get another Kamada chance cutting in from the left. Cannon blocks this one. So Kama's just running at Canon repeatedly. And it seems like there's a lot of Japanese pressure, and we are by far the second best team on the field. Yeah, the subs have not changed that.

I can definitely say, but I mean, the changes we made to start the second half were positive. The tactical changes, right? Those are positive. The personnel, I don't think Canon was really helping us. And again, I know there's that talk, and there has been now since. since at least the June window of he can come in because he can do the stay at home right back. But staying at home is not that hard to do. You don't need a stay at home specialist to play.

You just take whoever your right back is and go like, all right, you're going to stay here and play. You're not going to adventure up the field. So you got to also be good at the defending part of it if that's going to be your trademark. And Kana kind of got dusted a couple of times here. He looked really out of sorts on the goal, which we'll get to here. shortly, but Johnny Cardoso, I thought I clocked him getting eliminated in the 72nd minute. I felt like he was, I guess I don't have that much to say about him. Was he bad?

Was he okay? Was he good? No, he wasn't good. He was, I mean, he was rough. I mean, he's, what is he 20? He's not going to go to the World Cup for us. And he's a strange call up and he's a strange guy to give minutes to. scenario because he's not like a he's not going to set our floor like in what scenario are we

going to use johnny cardoso in guitar that's what that's what seems so strange to me is uh this guy's not going to play for us if for some reason adams needs out uh or or yeah i mean no he was playing an eight in this game cardoso was you're not going to like look down our bench to be like cardoso you're up uh we will we will change things around to fill that spot so the call up was kind of a confusing one, but no, he is, he's not going to be on the roster in guitar. Am I wrong here? I don't see it. I don't see the reason for it.

I haven't been, I haven't been tracking his performances in Brazil lately, and I understand that he's been better. Is that your understanding too? Better lately than he was a year ago or so? Yeah, but he's still never been the, like, the all-action kind of midfielder that we would bring, that we would need to bring in to spell one of our other center mids. like in this scenario, it would be Kellyn Acosta if we had to use

somebody else as a center midfielder in guitar. And I don't love that, but that's where we are now. It's not going to be Johnny Cardoso. We'd either, again, change our shape and use one of Aronson or Raina, which I know Berthalter alluded to, like he named every single player in camp as the guys who might step in for Musa. But yeah, there's just no reality where Johnny Cardoso is going to play

in the 2022 World Cup. Sorry to make it sounds a final. It's weird. though. It is weird to bring him in like this because Burrhalter's been talking for weeks about how precious these minutes are, how scarce they are.

75 minute mark we get another big chance for Japan. Tillman makes a tackle on Kaoru Mitoma but the ball spills down the line and nobody really goes for it. I think Zimmerman was kind of looking behind him when the ball spilled in that direction.

So another Japanese player runs onto it and then let's see, plays it across to Rizzo Doan, who takes it first time with his left foot from the top of the box and hits it high. Turner tips it over. It kind of looked like it was going over anyway, but, um, was it? I think it was.

But anyway, another shot for Japan. Yeah, but good, good reactions from Turner and good range to get up and go get a paw on it. We get a shot from Brendan Aronson in the 81st minute off the point. press, he shoots wide, good energy. It's a good AVP. It's just a, the shot goes well wide. Yeah, this was, this was like classic Red Ball ball right here was, because it wasn't just the press, after the press, there was this like very vertical passing sequence where some of it was passing, some of it was deflections off shins, doesn't matter, it all works the same in Red Bull Ball. So it ends up kind of in Tyler Adams's range and he gets to it and

just kind of nudges it forward for Aronson in a lot of space to do his little shimmy have his hit. And I think it was right after this that I heard Twelman say that Brett and Aronson absolutely has to be on the field from the start for the U.S. What is he talking about? Like based on what? I wasn't sure. I'm not sure yet.

Okay, Taylor. Again, as always, it's going to sound like we're bagging hard on Brenda. I love Brenda. I just don't think Brenda is putting any of Pulisick Rainer or Way on the best. Well, I think so we got into this a little bit in the sound off on the Discord right after the final whistle. But if we're going to play Red Bull Ball or something approximating Red Bull Ball, energy drink football, then maybe he's got to start. Maybe he's got to start in that scenario if we're just going to kick it long and press,

press the hell out of the opponent. So maybe that's where he has to start. but if we're going to try to build out of the back and set a high line, I would have to say that he definitely should not start. I would completely say the opposite of what Twelman is saying. All I know is that as soon as Twelman got done saying it, Brenda got wrecked again and ends up toppled on the front and a heap on the ground again in Japan are running back at us again and get a decent chance of this.

And once again, Cardoso not quite doing enough to control enough of the pitch in the middle of the six-yard box, but nothing came up for Japan. In Cardoso's defense, I think he's been, he's now been thrown into like multiple very hard and difficult situations in a U.S. shirt. The entire Jason Christ designed disaster in Olympic qualifying,

that's what we, most of us have our impressions of him from that. And then this game, which was not great. Yeah. There's no way. he's going to fix what was going on in that game. I'm for sure. Yeah, I'm for sure, like, sounding too hard on Johnny.

I'd be saying the same things about Gianluca Busio. Like, Busio doesn't have a role to play in guitar either. You know what I mean? Like, we kind of know who the center mitts are that we can, that we will trust. And again, the only one that I feel like that isn't here that might be able to step in late would be like an Eric Williamson. I think that I think that Tim Tillman ship has sailed as well. But we've seen Williamson do this.

kind of a job for us in a high leverage moment in the Gold Cup final ably. So it's, yeah, so it's not just particular to Johnny. It's just sort of throwing in any brand new center mid in more of like the defensive mold. It's just not happening. Right. Well, let's get to the goal and then get out of here. But 88th minute Japan scores, again, they build up from back to front. A lot of, you know, a lot of patience in their defensive, in our, so in their defensive third,

very patient and then they get a pass that releases it out wide left tons of space out there they sort of had disorganized us with the ball if you will and um matoma gets it uh on the touchline and runs right at reggie cannon reggie cannon just kind of matt adores him through more or less and he curls it past turner nice finish two zero japan i thought cannon's defending here was really bad. He turns the wrong way and he turns back and doesn't even really challenge, you know, doesn't even really challenge Metoma. I mean, what is he expecting somebody else to come in and take care of it? A little, I mean, he's not wanting that to happen, but I mean, somebody else does come in and, I mean, Zimmerman arrives. So Cannon's defense here isn't catastrophic. I mean,

he gives up a shot from what, outside, just outside the box, right? From an angle. So it's not horrible. The hit's perfect. Zimmerman is in and does a nice little genuflect blocking technique that he's done probably a couple other times already in this game successfully. And it's probably the right choice. But his angle is literally like six inches off. That's it. And that's the exact window that

the shot goes through and just sneaks inside the far post. So if Zimmerman sets up even four inches farther, then he takes away the whole far post. And then Matt Turner barely has any goal that he needs to cover. And this is just another blocked shot that, you know, after a long run on the dribble, which isn't super, doesn't need to feel

that threatening. But more for me was just how shambolic the press was, which I don't even worry that much about it because Malick and Cardoso were a big reason. The press was so shambolic in this moment. Our front three are kind of chasing. There are no way connected to the midfield three and they're kind of, they're hustling, but they're also not, you know, doing much to funnel play. but then the midfield behind them is a huge mess.

Cardoso and Malick are like turned facing each other to try to communicate in real time about who needs to go where. And so they're just, I mean, they're completely eliminated. And that's how they end up with Japan ends up with all that space to run into. Just something I noticed. It was more, again, more just like a comedy routine because I don't think it's going to have that much bearing on World Cup decisions. brother not good the candid defense

does matter you'd like him to you know get stuck in a little bit better a little bit earlier and make a play sooner but what he gave up wasn't wasn't you know

horrible I guess yeah I thought I thought he was not in a position to challenge the shot 30 yards after squaring up the guy

you know yeah that's fair I can be going soft and at the 89th minute of a friendly I mean Yeah I mean Whatever the game the game was over at this point

But yeah if canon's trying out for a stay home right back spot right like that's that's his primary job is to stay home and be able to make these kinds of defensive plays So if he doesn't That's not optimal for him No and I yeah I don't I like to think Shaq Moore wouldn't allow that kind of shot to be taken but I mean, Joe Scali can stay home and defend. Yeah. Joe Scali isn't super adventurous for Gladbach right now.

He could play a stay home right back, no problem. I mean, in the abstract. I'm not saying he would step in and be great for us against Saudi Arabia, but he would totally fit that profile just fine. Yeah. It was a banner day for the Burrhalter out crowd. They got, you know, long, long playing really, really badly. Ferreira missing a decent chance right in front of goal.

No Scali. Cannon gets cooked on the second goal. It's like if you were playing bingo, almost all the bingo cards got marked. Yeah, we would have needed like a sergeant goal here to really drive home the point that it should be sergeant because we didn't like get that, right? There wasn't anything sergeant did. That was tremendous.

I think this was, for me, it was a little bit more evidence that like, We've got to have contingency plans. We can't just have one profile, lock into it, and then just be like, this will work or we go home after three games, because as we've seen, then it will be very possible that we go home after three games without some of these sort of backup plans. Unless, again, unless the backup plan isn't going to be personnel, it's going to be like nerds to passing, lump it long, we're the Red Bulls now. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we could go out and we could go three and out at the World Cup, even if we're, clicking on all cylinders going into it and look like a really good soccer team.

So we got to get better before Tuesday because then we only have, we have, we have, Tuesday's friendly, everybody goes back to their club and then they have like a week in camp right before the first game. So it's basically, I mean, basically the World Cup has already started. Effectively. Let me just throw in a little bit more on the sergeant bit and striker in general, I guess, since the hat maybe isn't quite ready to give up yet. Like I've been, I'm fine with Ferreira.

I feel like Ferreira fits the system. But if the system, you know, relies on other players performing that aren't doing it, like I don't think it's really easy to judge Ferreira's performance here. One, because I don't care about misses. Two, because the ball never worked its way up to the attacking third of the field. And I wouldn't really put that on him. But if we are in a situation where we have to be ready and willing to abandon the kind of play that would make Ferreira good, then like Josh Sargent probably should edge him out

as the starting striker because Sergeant, you could do that on the fly, right? If we if we start out thinking we're going to hold the ball and play and possess and be really slick, Sergeant can do those things and play in that kind of false nine role. If after 20 minutes, we can't do any of that. And it's like, okay, well, let's start playing a little bit more direct. You can do that to Josh Sergeant. He's physically got the profile to do that. Whereas, like, if you just start Ferreira, that's a lot. You can't really do that on the fly and be like, well, I guess now the plan is to, you know, loft balls up to Jesus Ferreira. That's not a good strategy for me. And going the other extreme would be bringing Pfeck in, but Pfok can't do the sergeant stuff on the ball, right? Like the

coming back and playing. So if you want a contingency that covers as many bases as possible, that'd be Josh Sergeant, Josh Sergeant starting striker. Yeah, good point. Hopefully it starts against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. For that reason, because I have no, I have very little confidence that we're going to be able to do the kind of soccer that is required to maximize Ferreira's gifts. You know, at least not, not by Tuesday. We'll see, man. Like the second half looked better for the first 15 minutes of it, 20 minutes of it. So if we start, say, McKenzie and Zimmerman, both those guys can pass.

Both those guys can pick their head up even and hit some direct passes. So if we start Sergeant, even with like McKenzie and Zimmerman, plan A could work. So we could see Sergeant in there with Plan A and it could click a little bit. So that's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping that we start Sergeant, but Plan A still works and we don't have to give up there and we get a little bit more success with the more attractive style soccer. That's my hope.

What if we do the Plan A, Plan A, Plan A, Plan B, Plan A, Plan A, Plan A, Plan A, plan A, plan B. I'd take it. Take it in Harvey. All right. Anything else? We did a Discord call-in show earlier today. If you want to participate in those, join the Patreon.

I thought it was pretty fun. And we got an interview with Jenny Chu. Waki and I interviewed her yesterday. And it was great, but it's not the right time to release it. That's coming in a few days, maybe in a couple days. And then we'll have the Monday review on Monday with Waki and Vince and I and Waki and Vince and me and then the Saudi Arabia games on Tuesday.

So that does it for this edition of morning soccer. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.