Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #322: England v USWNT recap

Episode Date: October 8, 2022

A scintillating contest at Wembley. The US came up short, but was plenty threatening. Still lacking final third choreography and composure, and the ability to build sustained possession out of the back. We got robbed of a big Trinity Rodman goal by a ref who had a shocker. Girma was excellent.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. 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. We lost 2-1 to England at Wembley on Friday, and we're here to recap it. Before we get into this game, which was a great spectacle and an extremely useful test for the U.S. women's national team. Not to mention a lot of fun to watch. We should acknowledge the Sally Yates investigation. You've probably read it or parts of it or the landmark story by Meg Linnahan for the athletic a year ago that helped prompt the investigation. of the NWSL that, and I quote, revealed a league in which abuse and misconduct, verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct had become systemic,

spanning multiple teams, coaches, and victims, end quote. The stories that these women have had to tell are blood-boiling and did in fact hang over this game. All the players wore teal armbands in solidarity. Here in the U.S., everyone who allowed this type of thing to occur as Becky Sauerbrun put it, has failed in their stewardship. I thought it was striking that one of the stories came from the president of U.S. soccer herself, Cindy Parlo Cohn.

Some moves are being made, for instance, the executive who asked Cone, then the Portland Thorns head coach, what was on her bucket list besides sleeping with him, has been fired. But a full accounting must be done. I think we all know that. To the soccer. Do the soccer. which was notable.

Yeah, it was notable. We waited a while, I think, for a test, we had Canada in the GondkavW Championship. And again, I always want to caveat this that we want to respect every opponent we play. But there are degrees, right? There are levels of quality, levels of player performance. And, you know, over the last year, we had not been playing a lot of the top teams in the world. And we are one of the top teams in the world, clearly. So for us to get the competition we need to really test ourselves and expose our weaknesses,

it's only going to happen in these kinds of games. So we had Canada in the championship back in June, and now we get England, current European holders. And this is what we want, right? We want this level of opponent. So I've been waiting a while, really, really enjoyed it. Not always like as impressed as I wish I would have been, but like just loved watching it unfold. Yeah, it was great television.

Four goals were scored in the first half. One of them got called back. So we got robbed. I'm going to say it. We got robbed. I don't know. I thought on our initial watch we were the better side in the first half, like pretty clearly. And then when I rewatched it, I don't know that I think that.

that anymore. I thought we were, that was a pretty even game. Probably England, the better, the better side overall. That was my feeling when I was watching it was that England were, uh, better, England were a little bit more, um, I'm going to keep using the word intentional, and I've used it through all of our recaps about the women's team, uh, because so many times, like, even when we get good chances, it doesn't come from us necessarily doing something we were actually trying to do. Uh, and so watching me from pressing. Came for pressing. Yes, no, and that's good.

That kind of a goal is good, but through much over the rest of our play, like when we're not pressing and creating a mistake and then capitalizing on that mistake, there just ends up being a lot of like slop, right? You know, again, balls into somebody's shin that deflects favorably or whatever else it might be. And so I thought England was a sharp contrast to that. And I actually remember in like the 60th minute, who's doing the color on this game? Who's the comedy? It was Allie Wagner.

Yeah. So in like the 60th minute, England finally like just has possession, but just hits this long hopeful ball and it runs straight to Alyssa Neyer with no one else around it. And even Allie Wagner was like, this is one of the first times England's had the, you know, a ball just hit to nobody. And I'm thinking, man, that is such a constant occurrence when you watch our women play that we hit a ball to nobody just upfield. Like upfield to where we want to go. Let's hit it blasted upfield. And it's just like. the opposing goalkeeper collects it under no pressure. And so it was so notable that like it took 60 minutes for England to do that. And then did it again in like the 85th minute. I was like, oh, there's another one, England. Not so good now. So, you know, game state plays into that when they're winning to one. I think they showed that they are a real quality side because we do press and we are pretty good at it, I think.

And so they were able, even though they towed the line a few times and gave up the goal they gave up on a mistake. playing against our press. Like they did play at a really high level against our press in terms of controlling the field, controlling the ball, not panicking. And a lot of times, using their patience to create an opening upfield.

Yeah, they praised J.P. Delacama and Allie Wagner were the broadcast team, and they praised Kira Walsh a lot. And I think it was deserved the number six. for England. I think Walsh and Georgia Stanway kind of were the chief offenders if you're thinking about them as

opponents, which they were, which they were. But yeah, it's just almost like a level of discipline that they had that we've kind of been, I feel like we've been almost like hoping to see from our team as we play and to not always go for the home run ball in England. were very, very good at playing what was allowable and not, not going beyond that. And at times, like, maybe overly conservatively, but I wish we would swing back a little bit

that way and force ourselves to, uh, to sort of play our way into openings more rather than just like trying to jam things through and then, and then if it doesn't work, hoping we get, get a little bit of a, uh, a fortunate bounce or win a little bit of a battle. I mean, again, there are ways to do that that's almost like describing Red Bull soccer but we obviously aren't fully committed to Red Bull soccer if we were going to go that route I think it'd be interesting but I doubt it

happened so if we're not going to go that route then I do wish we would just show a little bit more of like discipline and patience that England showed in this game yeah yeah I agree I think that's why I bring up Walsh and Stanway though because I don't I don't know if we have

those kind of players in the middle I mean So we definitely, you know, we definitely don't have a Walsh. We don't have a six with that kind of savvy. I don't think, do we? Is there a six somewhere that we're not playing who can play like Kira Walsh? I don't think so, no. But, no, that's a great point.

So much of that discipline that England had was Walsh just coming back and saying, you, give me the ball, and then her just sort of dictating how they proceeded from there. And then, I mean, Stanway, Stanway was a big help on that too. Stanway is like, she's, she's, she's in, she's in cage matches, like every moment of the game. And when she gets on the ball, something, you know, she does something, uh, productive and clever with it. So it's like, it's like she's kind of a mix of a six and a, and a 10 almost. I mean, I guess you call that an eight.

Yeah. I definitely think that there is that they have that sort of mentality, right, to control a game, to dictate a game. And I think we probably are missing that. And I don't know if you can just sort of like instill that if you can have a manager or a team culture that can sort of instill that. What I keep thinking is we have the technique. We have the technique to do it. Right. We have the players who are technical enough to do this. And so I feel like we're not getting nearly enough out of what our technical abilities are. And again, going to caveat all that was saying we still played fine against arguably the other, you know, one of the other top five teams in the world. So it's like it still shows where our floor is. And I think even us being like as inefficient as we can be, we are right there, you know, with England in Wembley in front of what, what was it? 70,000. I thought they said it was 90. 90,000. So it's like we're in a good space.

And I just want to see us take one or two more steps forward, which again, it would be huge when you're already starting where we're starting. Was it different? So I'm speaking from ignorance here. Was it different when Ertz was on the field? Was she kind of a Kirill Walsh for us? I think that's fair. And she's still a different kind of player.

You know, like we still weren't like, under Jill else we were never like the type of team that was going to be that conservative either that cautious or that again I want to say disciplined in attack but I do think

I do think Julia Hertz is a player who just can grab the game against any team by the scruff of the neck as the English might say and just can and just take it over for you so that the other team gets way less of what they want to do because again I feel like

England were able to do what they wanted to do and they just sort of chose to not be terribly adventurous. And I feel like a Julie Ertz tight, like if Julie Ertz was back, then she wouldn't let England do the things that they did here sort of comfortably. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't think Andy Sullivan is that kind of player. And maybe Sam Coffey will be someday, but she's not right now. Let's do the lineups. So it was Alyssa Nearing goal for the U.S. Sophia Huerta, Alana Cook, Naomi Germa, and Emily Fox across the back line.

So Germa, the big choice there, I think, and acquitted herself very well. What a test for her and what a performance on that test. Yeah, she was awesome. And then Andy Sullivan at the 6, Rose Lavelle and Lindsay Horan at the 8th, we had Trinity Rodman got her big start too. Another big choice here. She played on the right wing and Sophia Smith played up top and Megan Rapino on the left wing.

That was another choice, I think. And I'm not sure how well that one came out. So it was, I mean, you know, if they count that goal, then we're loving Rapino's choice and her, in her nuance. But it was cool to see this, right? It was cool to see that with Macario and Alex Morgan both out do world-class strikers. We can throw a kit up there and then throw another kid on the field. And it'd still be pretty solid.

Like out of those three frontline players, I think you make a case that Rodman was as good or maybe even better than, I don't know. I don't want to go too far because I know Sophia Smith had herself a game too. But Rodman looked good. Yeah, I thought Robin was, you know, on balance probably better than Smith, but It's a high floor. We've got a high floor as a team. England was Mary Earps in goal. Lucy Bronze at right back caused us all kinds of problems down our left side.

Millie Bright, Alex Greenwood, and Rachel Daly across the back line. Daly's kind of a stand-in at left back. Kira Walsh, the aforementioned at the 6th, Georgia Stanway, and 4,000. Fran Kirby round out the midfield, and then it was from right to left, Chloe Kelly, Lauren Hemp, and Beth Mead across the front line, and Hemp was just a handful, all through the game. They sang God Save the King before the game, which felt weird. It's going to probably feel weird for a while.

Somehow seems more appropriate to saying God Save the Queen. It just doesn't, God Save the King doesn't have the same, I don't know, not as charming. I'd be surprised if God is interested in either of them. He's interested in all of us, Greg. There was a lot of action early. The U.S. is high-pressing. England able to do some things down our left flank, like I said.

And so I'm going to have a lot in the timeline just in the first 10 minutes because there was so much that happened. And the big one right at the one-minute mark. So one minute into the game, we do a quick throw-in down the left side. And it's Sophia Smith. galloping into space behind Lucy Bronze. And she kind of comes into the box and opts for a shot from a difficult angle.

Even though she has Lavelle arriving in the box, arriving at the penalty marker, and Robin's showing back to the penalty marker. So Raman's making sort of a near-post run. And she kind of shows back to the penalty marker. Basically, Smith could choose between Lavelle or Rodman. She could just put it in their general direction, and one of them is going to have a shot on goal from 10 yards out, and she goes for the very low percentage shot.

And we've been arguing about this on the Discord a little bit, but some people would say, Tara would say, I don't mind that. It's the first minute of the game. She's teaching England to be scared of her. And I get that, but this was outside of the goal and the called back goal. probably our best scoring opportunity in the entire game. And we have to capitalize on these. We cannot waste an opportunity like this.

I don't care if it's in the first five seconds. This is just very wasteful from Sophia Smith. And it makes me a little frustrated. I'm the same because, again, this is right in my frustration wheelhouse, right? So I'm always going to be like you have to optimize your scoring chances. one of the things we'd bang on about over the last year against so many of our weaker opponents was that it would never matter really if we didn't make the right choice in a moment like this because we'll be right back here in a minute and a half right we're going to against against these

like a concaf teams that aren't Canada um we lived in the attacking third and and now i'm starting to think that like my biggest uh regret out of out of this last year is that we spent so much actual clock time in the finishing third against these opponents and didn't really ever work on like our are like final patterns of play to get this to get this shot that we should have gotten out of this sequence like that's that's the biggest thing like from this sequence what shot are you trying to get what shot is everyone on the same page trying to create and and that was another contrast because england i think in this game when they did get into these spots made much better decisions. They didn't always come off. They're not always going to come off. There's no guarantee

here that if Sophia Smith squares this ball over, that we score a goal. But it's in my mind very clearly the correct decision. And we don't get back into the box for like our next shot comes like 15 minutes later. Whereas over the last year, our next shot would be it, you know, 90 seconds later. So this is where that efficiency starts to matter when you're playing these teams because you don't live in the opponent's box. When you get there, you have to be. You have to be. making the right decisions. And that's where the wastefulness comes in. It's not converting.

Converting's a myth. But the decision making is where it gets wasteful. So, yeah, I am totally with you. This ball has to get squared across. It's kind of interesting, right? Rodman's movement here, I think, is perfect if it's 2 v2. If it's just her and Sophia, with Lavelle also in the picture, I think Rodman maybe could have, Rodman's movement was like a hard plant.

She's running in at goal as Sophia Smith's bearing down towards a near post. And both England defenders drop back almost on top of the goals. They're playing three goalkeepers, which is not terrible decisions from England's defense either. Rodman makes like a hard plant at the six and backpedals three steps. And it's just at the penalty spot with a great window to pass to. Unfortunately, that also is the exact window to pass to Rose Lavelle. I mean, there's plenty of ways it can still work. But in any event, a square ball from Sophia Smith here is not going to create like a tap-in, right?

It's not going to create an open net tap-in for either player. It's just going to create a much better shooting situation than what Smith is in herself. Yeah. If there's an out for Smith, it's that it is that Robin's movement does confuse the situation a little bit. Like, makes it makes it so that it's, it, Robin's movement cancels out Lavelle a little bit. And maybe that, maybe Smith looks up and sees things getting a little muddled at the 12 and decides, well, screw it. I'm just going to shoot. I'm just going to, we'll be here 25 more times this half.

Yeah, I mean, again, I'd believe it if we'd spent all year making this square pass and then saying, oh, well, this time she didn't do it because of these circumstances. But we just have not been making this pass consistently, right? We have consistently been not taking the high percentage road here. Even banging on about it all summer. Yeah. Even here, Dr. Strange could look at it and say this pass is going to go towards both of them and Rodman's going to execute a perfect dummy as both defenders close on her,

and then Lavelle does hit it into the open net. So there's still plenty of ways that the pass creates an even easier scoring opportunity than what the still frame shows. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's a big moment in the game, especially in retrospect, missing this opportunity for a high percentage shot. but we're still threatening

at the 210 mark Horan intercepts a pass just inside our half and tries to send Rapino down the line immediately the pass hits an alert Lucy Bronze in the back but falls to Pinot

and then she plays an untidy pass in the direction of Smith that's cut out it's two themes I think there's one decent space for us to work with throughout the, you know, basically until the first goal for England. Like we came out of the gate and England was a little, I think a little bit messy defensively.

I'm not sure exactly why, but there was space for us to exploit. And two, our transition, I think we were trying to attack quickly in transition, but so often it was untidy. And it wasn't just Rapino, it was, it was Lavell, it was Horan. I think it was it was even Sophia Smith to some extent Rodman's probably the only one in the front five who wasn't all that untidy Yeah it's it's team-wide and that's what I mean about there's no intentionality and that's where again the contrast with England is so stark Because it does seem like everyone on that team

Knows that it's it's their job not to give it away loosely It's their job not to just try to hit a home run ball like if it's not on so So again, I think these are, it's a great contrast and styles, and I'm hoping that we can borrow some of what England does well. Because we have, we have the, I think we've got the players who can do that. I really do, even though, even though they aren't doing it necessarily now, I do think there are some switches that could be flipped, hopefully in short time, to see us get a little bit closer to that ceiling.

All right, I might be able to stop banging on about it. Okay. Two minute, 42nd mark, England drives into our defensive third. Rapino is beaten pretty easily by bronze, just eliminated down the flank. And then Sullivan is bypassed by some cleverness from Hemp and Beth Mead.

But Huerta intercepts Mead's pass into the box for Kelly. So Meade is trying to pass it to Chloe Kelly. And Huerta plays Rodman down the line and Rodman beats her defender down the line. and tries to play a curling ball to Smith in behind. So it goes from our box to their box. And the pass is cut out by Alex Greenwood,

but she, and she just manages to hold off Smith. But again, I thought England looked open at the back. Yeah, and I thought, I thought this was a great sequence to highlight because this comes right on the heels of the Haran Rapino,

last sequence we just talked about, where we tried to beat him in behind. And it showed England's statement. I think this was a statement of intent from England as well because we, you know, they get it back to their goalkeeper's feet and we are like pressing them with three in the box and they're doing a little rondo inside their own box to start this. And it also, I think, highlights an issue we're going to have with our press if Megan Rapino's on the field. And she did some nice things in this game and she wasn't just completely like worked past.

but she would work past a few times, and this is one of them where, you know, we've got Inklund pretty well contained here and, you know, set up for creating a turnover that could be very dangerous in our favor. And Rapino is just sort of walked by on the edge. And so she gets done on the edge a few times in the first half. And it's going to ask some questions about whether or not we can really execute our press with Rapino out there from the start. Yeah. She's a passenger. I mean, she did do a couple nice things. I'll say a couple nice things in this game.

But she's a passenger defensively. And there's a domino effect with that. And then Haran being not the fleetest of foot. And it was a problem, I thought. Yeah. And it's especially a problem when you play a team that's committed to finding that one week spot in a press, right? England were poking and prodding. and once they found it and tip that first domino with with ripino

like their execution after it was so it's again it's that's where we get into like this is really fun to watch right the the vertical entry ball with a really quick layoff into a tight like a player who's almost on top of the layoff player like uh it's such it looks really slick at times and I know they didn't get a lot of end product from it either uh but yeah it's this this was a really fun soccer game to watch on an afternoon, Friday afternoon. Yeah, it was fun to watch the way Inklink came down our left flank. Let's see. Haran, four minute, 20 second mark.

Haran giveaway at midfield. Stanway takes it from Haran at the midfield line, drives all the way to the box, the edge of the box, and then leaves it for Beth Mead. At the top of the box, Mead takes a left-footed shot that is luckily right at Neyer. Yeah, Haran just loses out in the cage here. And she, Iran had a lot of, uh,

influential interceptions and interventions defensively here. She just went into a challenge and, and was second best. And, uh, and then Sullivan wasn't really connected with her. Uh, we were almost,

it almost looked like a soft man marking scheme. Once Stanway gets past heran, she's, she's, at midfield running just at, uh, Naomi Germa. Like,

that's it. It's just Germa. And, uh, I loved the little back heel. Uh, again, just shows that they're not,

she's not just going to for a bad shot or a low percentage shot just because it's available. She's at least going to try to work some interplay to see if they can get a slightly better shot, you know, unbalanced the defense slightly and get a better look. So another one that stuck out in my head for England not just settling for the first thing that opens up but trying to work for the slightly better thing. And again, there were moments the US does this too in this game that stood out for us doing it.

So I was happy to see that at times. Yeah, I was going to say we did a lot of back heels in this game. And I mean, I should say we were threatening as well. I mean, I know everybody who watched the game knows that. Five minute, 50 second mark. Smith is in space down the left again. This time she cuts onto her right foot and pulls it back for Horan, which is better. There's more English defenders in the box than there were.

The first time Smith was getting into the box. So she plays it back to Horan just inside the box, and Horan kind of dribbles into a couple defenders. But at least we're trying to play instead of ripping a speculative shot or cross. Yeah, and the buildup here was good too, right? And this matters for me. So this wasn't just like hopeful stuff and it ends up spraying. Like this is Horan hitting a really disguised ball into Trinity Rodman,

who shifted all the way over to the left half of the field from her right winger position. So it's this good, you know, reading of space, entering of space, passing into space and Rodman with a really nice, maybe a little bit lucky like ball in behind to Sophia to put her in that channel. It's like it's a one touch. Oh, one that Meg, me somebody. One touch ball that Meg's maybe daily.

So yeah, so this is what we want, right? We want to just keep soccering our way through things. And this was a little taste of that. We do some more soccering in at the eight minute mark. Another good combo involving Rodman, Lavelle and Huerta. where tickets played by Lavelle into the Man City Zone and she stands a ball up to the back post which is cut out fairly comfortably

but we did well to get her into that spot I thought I'm happy anytime we're doing we're doing a little bit of that soccer solution stuff so it might be a low bar but when we do it we look really good yeah I agree with you we have obviously we have the players to do it nine

nine minute mark England scores and at first the first time I watched it felt like it was totally against the run of play I wouldn't say that now it was kind of

within the run of play Pino and Haran are bypassed easily down the left flank ran in particular undone by some sudden movement from Georgia Stanway this was actually lovely

from England Stanway and and Mead both check back and then check forward into space in unison. And Bronze plays it through Rapino's legs

to Stanway. Stanway leaves Horan in the dust. We're talking about down the sideline. And then Stanway quickly plays it to Mead who had done exactly the same thing to Fox. Check two and then left her behind.

And Mead is meet is just galloping down the line. She plays an early ball, sort of a low cross, like a knee-high cross, curling in behind the back line. Lana Cook is in the right spot. She makes a sliding intervention, but just doesn't clear it.

It kind of settles under her as she slides past it and lands perfectly for Lauren Hemp to side foot it past Alyssa Neher. It wasn't even a particularly tidy finish, but from point blank like that, it got past. Neyer. 1-0, England, it felt, felt like we were hard done by. But I, I don't, I don't really think we were.

I think it's just, England was kind of good. Yeah, it's funny. So reading back some of the commentary going through the Discord, because I, you know, have a hard time doing that simultaneously. I had a different viewing experience, I think. I really thought that, again, just a total contrast and, like, levels of patience. This England sequence started with

Alana Cook smashing a ball from our half to their goalkeeper. You know what I mean? Like it was that thing again where we just hit a nothing ball from under no pressure all the way to them. And then England proceeded to patiently pass it

for like 35 seconds in their back line again, just kind of poking, checking, looking at what our press is going to do, kind of baiting us into certain areas. And then once it was on, just exploded forward, right? So if the triggers,

I don't know if they were intentionally targeting Rapino or if that just ends up being the gap that presents itself. But yeah, I mean, they're looking, they end up even in this buildup, they end up like venturing forward once and when it closes down, they like flow to pass

all the way back to their goalkeeper from midfield to start again. So it's just such a deliberate approach from them that I really like appreciated and was impressed by until finally that that seam opens up and then they were just gone and obviously you know you can you can point to alana cook misplaying it as to as really the key moment but england got themselves into the box in my opinion really impressively uh in that sequence yeah it's

you put a ball when you're putting a ball like that into the box behind the back line you've already undone the opponent to some extent. So yeah, so it's one that I know, you know, I imagine Cook will, I mean,

what was your take on, on Cook's actual attempt to intervene here? Just unlucky, really. I mean, that's, that was my take on it. All right, I'll give that. I mean, she should have done better.

I mean, you like her to do better, but sometimes, sometimes stuff like that's going to happen. Yeah, I'll give that to you. I'll give that to her. But yes, so that's what this was to me. This was like the culmination of what I felt like I was kind of already seeing,

which was just a really disciplined approach from England. And then to see it coupled with this final ability to just like burst forward when it became on, I was like, whoa, like this is all I want out of the U.S. Women's National team. yeah if you go i i thought in particular if you go back and watch the bronze to standway to mead part of the play it's really um it's really lovely and i think intentional is the right word for it it felt it felt very coordinated uh 12th minute lavel gets a bit cute in possession tries to backheel it to huerta through a defender and it turns into an attack down our right flank not a very

dangerous one. 13th minute. Another Lucy Bronze Cross from the right. Rapino, guilty of ball watching as... So two things I noticed on this play. One, Kira Walsh has a little bit of a disturbing amount of time in our half to play a diagonal ball.

I think it's partly because they're just moving the ball around so much and so cleanly, we're just kind of getting tired of chasing. But she plays a diagonal ball for... from inside our half in the direction of Emily Fox. And Fox gets stuck in a, so Fox wins the header, but she's stuck in a 2V1 because Rapino is ball watching from midfield. And Lucy Bronze runs onto it, beats Fox because Fox is trying to cover two people. And Germa ends up clearing the cross with her body out to Rapino,

who then promptly gives it right back to England. So they're kind of just allaying us at this point. in the game. They were and I think Walsh has the time to pick that pass out again because of the like extremely disciplined interplay from England where because no one hits a home rum ball and instead they make four short passes and wait to see if the picture changes. The picture changed significantly. They had they had Lavelle kind of chasing shadows. Sullivan and Horan can't stay connected to the play and so England end up with a little 3V2 or almost like 3B1. with their little central triangle, a center back, center, and two center mids, just kind of

toying with Rose Lavel. And when you're willing to not immediately release the tension by hitting that long ball up field, like then you can toy with people. And that's what we're seeing here. I think we saw England just toy with us and have this sort of know-how and confidence to do that. And they toyed with the Lavel long enough that Walsh got to open up, pick out which pass she wanted. She probably should have just gone directly to the.

to the player underneath instead of targeting the higher upfield player and collecting the second ball. But either way, like the little buildup here again is what all I want to see more out of from the U.S. Yeah, it was a hopeful

ball. It's just they had an advantage of being 2V1 against us because Rapino was not really playing defense in the moment. 14th minute Fox, we get a Fox throw on our left side and Rapino tries to volley it across the field, which is the technique

was lovely, but she underhits it a little bit. And it's a hospital ball into the heart of our defensive half. Chloe Kelly races onto it and swings it across the box from the left side to Lauren Hemp, who has a shot with her left foot that's blocked pretty much right off her foot by Andy Sullivan. But this is kind of pretty dangerous moment. And Rapino needs to figure it out here, I think. She needs to knock it off. Knock it off, Megan. Because she's done this a few times in the last few games. I can't pick out the time it was before,

but she tried something similar, like a really audacious field switch that was negative, like going backwards and did something similar where it hit it to the opponent, like running at the top of our box. And we're just like, hey, what do you have going on here, Megan? I know you can pull some stuff off, but. Yeah, if you hit that hard,

and it goes all the way across the field and lands at somebody's feet. It's like a highlight reel moment. But if you don't, then the current best team in the world will probably make you pay for it. So yes, just wanted to keep in mind because, again, if Megan Rapino is going to be able to be a reliable starter, it's going to be like we need her experience to pay off a little bit better than it did in this moment. Let's see, 1430 mark Smith.

wins a free kick on the edge of the box with her cage match excellence so this is a ball from rodman in behind that's just mishandled by rachel daily so i mean this is sort of classic velasquez slop i mean it was a good it was a good idea from rodman but daily mishandles it kind of goes through her legs and then um and then smith steps in front of her she's fouled very good work from Smith just outside the box fell just outside the box. Rapino slams the free kick right into the face of Hemp. She paid for it. Hemp did, but she did well to stop that with her face because it looked like it was

goalbound. And she looked like she was struggling a little bit right after that. But she continued to play and didn't seem to be struggling a few minutes later. The ball in here from Rodman, it didn't come off this time. But this is something I've noticed about Sophia Smith up top that we might not be getting as much of from Alex Morgan at the moment. And it's just this ball we play. Smith is a very knify player with her body.

So when we hit this ball like around the corner, right? Rodman plays it wide of all of England's defenders, wide of their fullback and kind of curls it towards Smith's path. We hit a couple of these in this game that Smith is really good at sealing off the centerback and getting to it in a way that the centerback has to like concede early. Like they have to be like, oh, nope, I'm not getting this. this is Sophia Smith's ball and then they just retreat to defend more so we can really gain ground

this way again it didn't didn't happen that way this time this one was just a bad misplay from England but it's it's a pass that you know as I'm watching it now there were several of these that that I clocked that paid off or that we executed really well so that's it's interesting to see that knowing that you know I don't know that Sophia Smith has a lot of center forward minutes in her as some of other players get healthy yeah it's a good point 19th minute we get good work down the right wing from Cook. So Cook's going to, she's obviously going to get dinged for the way she handles that ball in behind that leads to the goal.

She also got worked by Lauren Hemp pretty thoroughly later in the game. But she also, we had a little bit of a revenue stream with her playing sort of a ball on the ground up the right wing. It's like kind of the only way that we moved into the attack from possession. from our centerbacks was Cook playing it to a high fullback and just playing a very accurate crisp pass up the line. So she did that in this case to Huerta, a quick path from Huerta to Rodman in the channel,

a short pass, and then Rodman springs Lavelle into zone 14. So Lavelle is sort of charging at the box with the ball at her feet. She slips Smith in behind into the Man City zone where she tries to whip it across and Erbs pause it down and there's a bit of a scramble with Haran on the near post but it's called it's it's whistled as a goal kick I think it was should have been a corner kick but like who cares really

yeah this and this was this was slick right and I know Cook cook deserves some credit for initiating with that pass um you know Huerta being doing a good job of you know eating as much ground as she can and still giving cook even a tiny window to get the ball tour which cook does and then the rest of it's just slick soccer for me you know the decision to go into Rodman's feet instead of trying to hit it in behind or for Huerta especially, Huerta can have a tendency to just try to immediately get a ball across. And if you look at the far side as the ball gets to her, that we do have three

players like on that runway trying to run in a goal. So the decision to soccer through it a little bit, I was happy to see that because we did. Like we, we did some excellent stuff here with Halev's movement, Rodman's ability to player. And then this is another one of those balls into Sophia Smith. For me, didn't look like it was on. Right. When Lavelle's hitting this, I'm like, oh, there's no, that's that's going to be too overcooked or we can't get to it and sophia smith who starts out with a lot of ground to make up and a lot of angle to make up uh just knives knives in behind and gains control of this situation to to where england centerback has to like dodge her you know because she's been beaten so badly to the spot so she has to like change her gate to avoid running

into her legs and fouling her um so this is this is another sophia smith striker moment that i think is very intriguing and i'm very curious to to see whether or not we do any more of it or if she can just keep doing this stuff from the wing position. But this run in particular, which is just like the one I talked about last time, that central scene is kind of unique to the forward. She's not going to be making that particular run

from wide spaces too much. Right, right. Yeah, Lavelle hit it with just the right, I don't know, backspin or whatever to just die right before it got to the end line. Emily Fox gets hurt in the 22nd minute. Collision with Georgia Stanway on the left sideline looked like maybe her shoulder got her in the face

and then she has to come off. I have not seen an update on how she is, but Haley Mace came on for Fox right after this. Yeah, definitely hoping she's okay. Sometimes those things can be innocuous, but then can actually be real issues. So, yeah, hoping Fox is, because it did just kind of pass, like, oh, okay, well, she's off now. And here comes, here comes Haley Mason.

And then I don't think we did get anything more on it. No, I didn't see anything last night at least. And I thought Haley Mace, well, we'll get into how Haley Mace played. But I thought she was a downgrade from Emily Fox, which is, you know, natural because Fox is the starter. 23rd minute, nice interplay from Sullivan, Lavelle, and Horan. And it's played to Smith's feet at the top of the box. with her back to goal and she tries a back heel

that's taken off her foot just didn't come off, didn't execute. I think the idea was to backheal it to Lavelle making a run to her left with her back to goal. But, you know, Smith, like Smith did a lot of good things, but I think with her back to goal,

she kind of got eliminated a little bit by the centerbacks. Some of them felt like they could have been foul calls, but not this one. even the ones that could have been foul calls are good good moments for her to learn to like I mean she's doing she's doing good things in a league with grownups too but she's still she's still I think of her as like she's a kid right and so some of this was like okay you got to take some you got to take some licks here like and then and then learn learn to uh toughen up like

it's not going to go away Alex Morgan gets beat up every game like that's the job uh just wanted to point out on this sequence again started out the initiation the initiator uh was Sullivan going into Lavelle's feet was us intercepting their pass. So again, it's not like England were this flawless team, even though I've been talking them up. Our press is good, right? Our ability to sort of cover lanes and to intercede at the right moments is pretty solid.

And so that's a good chance creator. And this was another example of that was Sullivan jumping a passing lane and instantly getting it upfield to Lavelle, who, you know, very quick stuff leading to that back heel attempt. Yeah. I mean, Sullivan and Horan both had, each had a handful of interceptions in the press. We get a bad giveaway from Lavelle in midfield trying to Meg Kira Walsh. Respect it, though, right?

Do I respect it? I guess so, yeah. But at least a nervy moment where they're kind of driving at an exposed back line. didn't come to anything. 24 minute mark, just noted. Well, hey, it's, sorry. If we're going to talk about how we get exposed in that moment, it's a Sullivan thing for me.

So, Lavelle, you got to give Lavelle, you know, the grace to attempt this kind of stuff. When it doesn't come off, it's Sullivan's poor read for me. Like Sullivan then charges at Walsh, thinking like, okay, well, it's my job now to take the ball from her. Like, you're not going to take, you're closing down eight yards.

Walsh is staring up field. right as you get there, she makes her pass, you miss it, and now you've run yourself totally out of the play. So, you know, if we're talking about evaluating our sixes, like this is a really bad read from Sullivan that leaves us wide open once Walsh releases the ball. Not going to argue with you, Greg. 24-minute mark, I thought it was a good job from Naomi Germa

chasing down a long ball from Walsh and clearing it. It's a good read. And she had a lot of these good reads just before this, Rapino was bypassed easily by bronze. Let me just charge ahead here. 25 minute mark, Horan has a giveaway deep,

and it just feels like England is ruthlessly targeting our left side. Millie Bright finds bronze behind Mace, and bronze's touch is a tad heavy, but it's another, if it's not that heavy, and Germa doesn't intervene to bang it off her for a corner kick, It's another, you know, another deep opportunity deep in our space. Yeah, and if you're looking at our team, I think that's, once we took Emily Fox out, I think that'd be for sure what you would try to target, right?

We've got Haley Mason there being protected by Megan Rapino. Like, that's where you're going to get some joy. And I don't, I mean, these are still good players, but out of every, out of our entire lineup, that's where I'd be going to. Yeah. And they had trouble at times. even combining up the left. I noticed a moment of that in the 27th minute.

But then, 28th minute, England's trying to play out of the back and we get our equalizer. It's Lindsay Horan, who I did not think had a wonderful game who bodies Georgia Stanway, who I thought did have a very good game. Horan pokes it away from Stanway in the press. She just is a little bit too casual with it. And, you know, as she's receiving, a pass from Millie Bright from the back

so she's coming back towards the goal her hand pounces, pokes it to Smith Smith checks her shoulder as the ball is rolling toward her, turns and fires it bottom left corner past Earps. Erps gets a fingertip to it but not enough. So we give up a soft

a bit of a soft goal thanks to the cook mess up and they give up a soft goal that's one one. Yeah I think that's the way to put it. You know Millie Bright probably shouldn't play this ball to begin with into Stanway. Like there's no separation from Stanway to Horan and it's a long distance to make the

pass. So the entire time that ball's in transit, Stanway has to essentially be trying to hold off Haran while this is happening. And she doesn't do a great job. But she had maybe like one option to lay it off one time out wide to a right fullback. But mostly like right shouldn't play this. But if you're England, like the whole point of what you're doing here is that you can get away with playing some passes you shouldn't because the next player,

will be disciplined enough and technical enough to solve it for you. So you can solve like you should be able to solve one of these mistakes where Bright plays it into the wrong person. And so you're counting on Stanway when this happens, hopefully rarely to solve it. But Stanway doesn't, right? And Horan helps her to not solve it. And then it's just good, ruthless capitalizing from Sophia Smith. Some good ruthless capitalism from Sophia Smith. Yeah, so 1-1, 29th minute.

I wrote a lot about this sequence because it ends up resulting in England's game winner. But they just, 29th minute, they just slice through our left side. This is basically essentially right after the, this is essentially right after our goal. They slice through our left side again, Stanway, bronze, Walsh, and Mead. and then it's a ball in behind for hemp. And Germa makes a good sliding challenge to send it out for a corner and clear the danger, which on one hand, it's really nice soccer from England again, I thought.

But also, we're not stout with Pino, Lavelle, and Horan and Mace. It seemed like to me, Mace seemed a little bit out of sorts. Good thing Germa had such a good game, otherwise it might have got ugly. So go ahead, yeah. Well, I was just saying it's not like, again, And it's not like Pino's just invisible here. It's not like she's a total traffic cone. It's England really pushing the issue of testing her traffic cone ability because she's always in the picture, right?

Like even in this sequence that England get up our down our left side, like her Pino has a couple of like deflections where she blocks things. So she's right there. It's just like, okay, but eventually like we're going to find a little tiny range of movement that you can't still do at age 37. And so finally, like on the entry pass that beats her, she's, Rapino is like, you know, eight inches off. Like she couldn't quite cover the ground and change direction quickly enough. So it was very much like, okay, you did it. You did it once, Megan, but can you do it three times in a row, right? And so I do wonder if at this point it's like very deliberate from England to try to hit this side of our field.

It does seem like, I mean, if you're being uncharitable, it kind of looks like she's, oh, she can. can't ever quite catch up. Exactly what I'd say. Yeah. She's always working for it, but one step behind, half a step behind. The ensuing corner kick gets cleared toward the top of the box by Lindsay Horan. She does well to win the header, and it bounces out there, and Lucy Bronze and Haley Mace meet there.

More specifically, Lucy Bronze's face meets Haley Mace's the toe of her right foot because bronze is putting her head down to kind of get it on the ball. There's no call in the moment, but bronze definitely goes down. We couldn't, didn't know if she was just being dramatic or what. But two minutes elaps, and we, we play the ball into defeat of Sophia Smith at the top of the box twice, and she's dispossessed both times. Lavelle drives into the box on one of those, and I don't know what, I can't remember what she tried to do. She should have tried to shoot, but she didn't in this case. Lavelle, that is. Anyway, the ref goes back to the tape

after two minutes, calls a penalty on Mace. It seemed totally fair to me. It looked like it was a clear penalty and a yellow for Mace. I don't know what she's doing swinging her foot that high in the box in a situation like that,

on a player who's running kind of not away from the goal, but sideways toward the goal, sideways along the goal, perpendicular to the goal. And then Steinway puts the penalty away. And that's the decider in the game.

So my guess is Mace just doesn't see her. And in real time, you're watching it. And you don't think it's that bad because it's one of those where you're going to say, the attacker dipped her head, right? The attacker leaned way over. And that's why it's not necessarily like dangerous play. And if Mace had actually won that ball, I don't think it's an issue. But what happens here is, you know, Mace doesn't get to it first.

So since Brons gets it. it's there first at that point it doesn't matter that's her head or any other part of her body bronze moves the ball away and then mace with her with her foot going up high kicks bronze and so whether it's her head or her you know ankle it doesn't matter she caught her in the box and that's why for me it's definitely a pen and that's uh i think that's why you know it's not a red card if if bronze's head is head high and mace is up there with her foot that's when that's when you start to see the red card come out for the dion but but this one is just a i think just a normal foul but it's since it's in the box, VAR is going to do the double check.

Yeah. I mean, a couple of funny, it was kind of a shambles, the whole thing. I mean, two minutes after the call, they, two minutes after the incident, they call it. They, when they first, when the first, when the ref first goes to the VAR video screen, there's no footage. It's just the letters VAR in white letters against a black screen, which is kind of funny. And then they brought in, Fox brought in Joe, is it Joe Manchick? Is that his matchnik?

His name is Dr. Joe. His first name is doctor and his last name is Joe. Mr. Dr. Joe, uh, they brought him in and he was just like, it's like he just rolled it, rolled out,

rolled out of bed. He had no idea what's going on. Like he wasn't even watching the game. It was really funny. Look, you guys, you guys talk to Jenny Chu about what her process is for, for game day.

I would be, all I want in the world is to hear what Dr. Joe's processes for these game days. I'm guessing there is no, He doesn't actually even know that he's on call for these. He just gets his cell phone rings. He's out at the shop. He's like, he's trying to jump in.

He's like changing the oil of his pickup truck or something. It was crazy. I don't know. Then they just went away from him and they never brought him back in the game. I don't know. I don't understand what's going on. So anyway, 2-1, England. And then next thing I have is the USA goal in the 30s.

36 minute mark. At least we thought, we thought it was a goal. It was a patient bit of possession from the U.S. in this sequence. Not quite as elegant as what England had been doing. But this patient across the back line is capped off by a cookball through the lines to Rodman. This is a little bit of a speculative, sort of just bang it at Rodman situation. But Rodman wisely, cleverly let it. skip through. So she lifted her right leg and it went through her. It got through daily, I believe,

and it's through for Smith to run onto. And she did. She faced up Alex Greenwood and then played it across the box through Greenwood's legs toward Megan Rapino, who is attacking the ball from, at about the penalty marker. Rapino left it for Rodman. And this is that nuance. I think you were discussing earlier. The ball falls to Rodman, who had been charging into the box after leaving that initial ball for Smith. So Rodman makes a 40-yard, 45-yard run into the box to get on that ball. And then it's just her and the goalkeeper, the whole goal to shoot at, she puts it away

in the bottom right corner. Thought it was 2-2. VAR checked it, and the ref decided, without looking at the video herself, I will note, that Smith was offside. So she overturned the call on the field. Could have been two, two. Offside on the initial ball from Cook that Rodman Dummies. Yeah.

Was she offside, though? I mean, it doesn't matter. This is insane that it's overturned. You know, we can kind of, for me, I can just kind of laugh at it because it's a friendly and this isn't deciding whether we lift another World Cup trophy. But if they aren't actually using the computer lines, you know, that like, you know, that the Premier League uses to be like, nope, this person's, you know, by the breadth of one hem on their short, on their shorts, like they're offside, which is fine. I'm fine with that. Like, okay, that's black and white. It's a yes, no question. If they're just having somebody draw the line on there from the angle that we had and then eyeballing it like, nah, it looks like she might be over the line a little bit. Then it's, it's literally an insane decision to overturn this. Yeah, it didn't make any sense. I was, I'm very, I'm very, I'm very, upset. I'm very upset, Greg.

I'm just, again, like, if anything, just upset at the, how transparently ridiculous it was to, to have somebody just looking at it and being like, this is a clear and obvious offside call. The ref had a howler. We didn't get to hear from Dr. Joe. We didn't get to hear from Dr. Joe on this one. They just sent him out to pasture. So we just had to, we had to deal with it. It's 2-1. Tara's calling it a draw. She's saying this was a draw.

This game was a draw. We have another goal. Wasn't it a press goal that still exists in the lore that got chocked off for either offside or like a foul in the buildup? Where Lavelle and Press and maybe three other players had an outrageous like a sequence of passing and moving just looked like a you couldn't do like a shadow play. You couldn't do that unopposed as cleanly as we did it in a game like a year and a half ago. this goal is going to be in that category

where it's going to continue to exist as a goal for everyone who cares about the U.S. women's national team, even though it won't count in the books. We got robbed of a wonderful moment for Trinity Rodwin. Yes. Rodman. Totally agree with that because she had a game too.

So that would have been the, that was deserved. She deserved that. She deserves to still have it. The patients here that you're talking about from the U.S. was that's promising. I did enjoy it. Even here, there's a difference to make between a distinction to make between the way we're patient and the way sort of England is, England's patience seem much more coordinated. Hours in this, in this sequence was sort of just Lindsay Horan choosing to be

patient and sort of doing it herself. Like, I'll just be patient by riding this challenge that's and, you know, moving the ball backwards, but keeping it, choosing not to give it away even though I'm under a lot of pressure, which is still valuable. And I was glad to see us do that. But yeah, It's still just a different type of patience. It's a start, though. It's good. I'm glad we did that and kept trying to find some soccer solutions. Yeah, Lindsay loves drawing that contact and just kind of riding it.

I also noticed, you know, Lavelle wasn't really in the picture on this sequence. There were a couple other attacks where we got deep into the England's half where Lavelle didn't really factor in. Maybe she's just too far back or something. Yeah, so she's involved in the buildup, but she doesn't, once the ball goes forward, she doesn't join it. So Huerta, after we were being patient, tries to hit it up to her and kind of like overhits it or hits it too far forward, so LeVelle has to reach to control it and just knocks it back to Huerta,

and that's when Huerta goes back to Cook. So she's there, but yeah, once Cook hits it, and LaVelle's pointing out where it needs to go, but once that ball goes forward past her. She just kind of jogs into the, Yeah, I mean, attacking third. She maybe could have done more to join, but I don't know.

I feel like she was doing, she was hitting her marks on this one for me. Okay. Let's get moving here. We're 40 first minute, England puts this under the kosh a bit. Stanway shot is blocked by Germa with her body. Then a nice intervention from Huerta after a deflected Lucy Braun's cross falls on the back post. Huerta had to act and she just definitely stood.

I figured it out of bounds. Some good defending there, although we were, you know, we were feeling some pressure. And then England is just pinging it around in our half. I would, for me, the second long stretch of this where you just think like, whoa, we're, we don't have the ball. They have the ball. They're, they're olein us again. We were mostly defending it ably, right? It wasn't like, it's not like a listener's just facing shot after shot after shot.

But again, you just see that, you just see that composure and that willingness. from England to ping the ball around and see if we'll make a mistake. We didn't make a ton of them, to be honest. And when we did, Atlanta Cook was punished and Haley Mace was punished. But it's, again, just watching that level of, I'm just going to keep calling it discipline. So we're just going to keep using that word. Intentionality? Yeah, there we go.

Iran was messy, Mace was messy towards the end of the first half. Smith gets crunched by Millie Bright for a professional yellow when she turns her in the center circle. That is a really nice moment from Smith. Gets a lot of praise from Ali Wagner for it. We get it into England's defensive third, but nobody's really tidy enough.

Smith takes another low percentage shot just before the half. On the ensuing scramble, Lavelle tries to tap it over the back line for Haran, but Horan gets knocked down. I don't know. Lavelle's decisions are so vertical. Everything is vertical.

There's almost never a square pass out wide. And sometimes it pays off, but a lot of times it doesn't. It felt like quite a bit of hero ball from Rose. 47th minute, Germas again good on the break. Stant Stryd for Stride with Lauren Hemp, who was an absolute unit, and forces a difficult left-footed shot that is pretty easy for,

for Neyer to handle. Torch has passed here, right? You mean from Sauerbronn? Yeah. Germa and Germa and Rodman both had great games, but Germa in particular, I thought. So we're going to, we're moving on to the second half, and it's going to be a lot less to say about the second half. The first half is where I think almost all the notable stuff happened.

But the good thing about the second half is we came out pressing and pinning England back. Sullivan wins it high in around the 47 minute mark to Rapino and then Rapino goes ping, ping, ping with Lavelle. Lavelle plays to Smith into the box, you know, streaming into the box. She receives it on her left foot and drags her left footed shot wide of the post. I think it went through Millie Bright's legs, but it was wide. But a good sequence after some pressing. Yeah.

And you know, you talked about in the first half, you just talked about how Lavelle tends to play you know, vertically, vertically, vertically. And so many of our chances come off these high interceptions, right? Solvin with another one here. And then quick decision from Solvin. So the interception, and then the quick ball up to, you know, no resetting, no circulating here. Hit this ball up while England are disorganized still before they can get back. And it does make me wonder, like, what this team would look like if it did fully commit to the sort of that red ball style and just wreck people for 90 minutes.

But anyway, that's just a really hypothetical because I don't think any national team at this point is going to really commit to it. Though again, I do especially think it would be interesting in the women's game where, you know, you could maybe try to run that as like an underdog strategy if you, if a team could really give it a go. I mean, is Blackco going to do the needful and turn this team into a patient possession team in the next? eight months no he's i have no expectation that that will happen so we'll continue to be this sort of like uh it's not even meandering it's uh it's sort of again a bit wasteful team in possession um but very dangerous when we don't have the ball like we're dangerous against any team that's gonna try to play it that's that's another hallmark we saw from the last year uh it said even when we couldn't break down bad teams the moment they tried to like play against us and open up like that's when

they were going to get punished. Yeah. And I do think we, you know, Mallory Pugh was not in this camp because of personal reasons. I don't know that there's been any clarity on that, but she was not in this camp. And she, you know, she's so, she's so ferocious in the press. It would have been a, it's a big difference between her and Megan Rapino. When it comes to, you know, pressing and red-bulling the opponent.

49th minute we get Haran just gets bodied by Lauren Hemp and midfield I mean kind of gets embarrassed physically here and England's off to the races but Mead was offside which prevented a chance from happening 50 second minute 53rd minute German another very good defensive intervention passes it to Pino after she she wins the ball

and it rolls under Pino's feet we've gotten some nice moments of combination from Pino, but she's, you know, the mistakes are starting to pile up, I think. She'll redeem herself towards the end here with a really nice combination that I'm sure made the timeline. But yes, overall, like, I do think if she wants to maintain her spot and be effective, like, she's got to use her experience to cut out some of these things. And I just don't know if, like, it's just her game.

Her game is so much of these creative try stuff, you know, that's so much her mentality, but I don't know that you can separate that out and just be like, hey, get rid of the bad stuff, but keep all the good stuff you're doing. I don't know if that's her. A little bit like, I mean, I know we're not supposed to compare the sport across genders,

but it reminds me a little bit of, you know, late stage Clinton Dempsey. I can see it. Where he was trying stuff a lot and a lot of it not coming off. All right, Chance England in the 53rd minute, Walsh splits Sullivan and Rapino for hemp, who drives into the space and sprays it wide for Chloe Kelly. Kelly goes at Huerta, one of the rare times where Kelly got a little action on the left side.

Huerta concedes a fair bit of space and kind of stays off of Kelly and Kelly gets a chance to shoot from just inside the box, curls it wide, but this is a dangerous shooting opportunity. If she puts this on frame, it's a pretty serious situation. Yeah, and it feels like sort of the first time England have been dangerous in a while. I do think they became less aggressive once they had to leave, which that's a normal game state thing. But yeah, when they do buy their time, they're good enough to eventually open you up a little bit. I thought we also didn't look nearly as threatening in the second half as we did in the first after that early Smith chance, which surprised me.

I thought we were going to come out and score some goals in the second half. But we didn't. In 55th minute, Hemp does Alana Cook. So this is a low light for Alana Cook, who I think other than this moment and the goal, the first goal I thought had quite a good game. But two big moments, she gets thoroughly done by Hemp on the left sideline. hemp cuts it across for bronze to arrive late on the back post and hit it hard and she does off the outside of the side netting but it was close it was close to the post and this was the one

that really stood out for me for england making the right choice in these final final 15 yard patterns because so often when we get into this we either you know actually shoot or even like our delivery will be too close to the goalkeeper and again england just very savvy to keep this ball away from the goalkeeper hit it into a window where only their player can get to it and in fact two of their players could have gotten to this. I don't know who it was but somebody else was trying to catch up to it. It was overhit a little bit for her. So eventually she just said, nope, you take this one bronze and so left it for bronze to smash. I sometimes think like I think it was Fran Kirby who left it for bronze. Kirby had a chance to get on that cross and left it for

left it for bronze I feel like there are some players on the U.S. team who would just not even see bronze because it was an efficiency thing, right? Kirby was moving away from the goal so she would have had to have taken another touch and then shot and so just recognizing instantly that bronze is racing onto this with the correct

angle to hit it first time and so she visibly got out of way too so there wasn't that moment of like bronze having to hold up wondering what was going to happen. She, like, signaled with her whole body. Kirby did that this is yours. Bronze, go ahead and have it. And bronze had it.

Yes, she did. And in contrast, I don't know that I put this in the timeline, but there was a shooting opportunity for Crystal Dunn later in the game at the top of the box with her left foot, where Sophia Smith is trying, you know, she's coming back towards the goal, back to goal, back towards the ball with her back to goal. And she basically puts off Dunn's,

opportunity to shoot. But like just get out of the way, Sophia. Get out of the way. What are you doing? And again, use your whole body to communicate that like, I am getting out of the way. This is yours to hit. US is settling for crosses in this stretch of the game. Huerta sends one over the goal.

Rapino curls one at the back post. Gets headed away comfortably. Horan tries her luck and plays one at Rapino, but she's bracketed by two centerbacks. And England starts, gets back on the ball and starts pinging it. around. There's a misconnection from Rapino to Smith, another one from Haran to Rapino. Rodman tries across. It's knotted away. So we're looking a little bit desperate and not very thoughtful as the hour mark sort of rolls around. But we get one little oasis here in the 61st minute. Is that where this is with the sideline

the sideline sequence from Rapino, Horan, and Lavel? Yeah, mostly Rapino and Horan, right? Doing a lot of rondowing on the left side. Those two love to, they love to Rondo. It's like,

yeah, and that's exactly, they're a great rondo, and the only thing I wish is that Ashley Sanchez would have been in the game for this because she loves these, these moments too. So,

so yeah, so it's just Rapino looking at, having time to, you know, look at, put her foot on the ball and watch runners. And when she can do this, I usually like what she pulls off.

So a nice little disguise outside of the boot pass just around the pressure defender on Rapino into Lavel and then Rapino makes her run through. We swing it out. Lavels ignores her, looks her off, goes wide to Haran who can square up and see the whole field. And now Haran plays a little one v one game and then nice disguise pass into Rapino inside the box with a ton of time, right? ton of space. And maybe a year and a half ago, like Rapino gets this shot off a little sooner before it gets closed down. But still, this is a promising look.

Love the whole sequence. Want more of it. Yeah. Lovely. The pass from Iran to eliminate those two defenders was gorgeous. We've got it in us. That's what I feel like. We've got this in us.

Rapino, I don't know. I think she just kind of blasted it. It didn't seem like she was going near. post or far post. She was just hitting it hard. We get some subs in the 63rd minute. Glory B, we get Crystal Dunn back on the field after maternity leave. This wonderful news. And then Sam Coffey on for Sullivan. So Dunn comes on for Huerta. Mace moves over to right back. Dunn plays left back the rest of this game. And basically, they're not attacking the left side anymore. England stops attacking.

the left side. Really? I know I didn't clock that, but yes, that's what happened, huh? Yeah. They started attacking the right side a little bit when Mace went over there, but I think not without as much success as they were as they got attacking the left side with Mace there. So, 63rd minute, Roosevelt gets guided under her right foot by a savvy Greenwood. I forget how she was played into the penalty area, but she's got like a pretty clear 2 v2 and Greenwood kind of guides her to her right

and she trips over the ball with her right foot to kill the little attack and transition gets cleared or just I think just we lost possession. Yeah so this was another this was another Red Bull sequence right it's coffee winning winning like a deflection off an England throw

and instantly playing it vertically up to Bealel who has a nice little layoff to Rapino who then instantly tries to go vertical again which is not the wrong decision, but it turns into slop, right? It's Sophia Smith with someone draped on her shoulder, and England's defender manages to sort of get around her and just poke it away, but not anything decisively. So then in the ensuing scramble,

Rapino gets it again and hits it up to Lavelle, and now because England's centerback had just done the business on Sophia Smith, she's at a position for the next vertical pass. And so that's how you end up with Rose Lavelle and Trinity Rodman running 2 v2 at England. Herann's coming down the left side, but she's never going to be able to catch up to this play, I don't think. So it's going to stay 2 v2 and whatever Lavelle can make of it. And you don't hate this situation at all, right?

Rose Lavelle's pretty good. So the fact that she made a mess of it eventually doesn't take away from the fact that we got this 2V2 with our sort of cage matching. And this was Red Bull. This was all Red Bull stuff. You're really selling me on this Red Bull thing. I don't know. I don't know what other options we have to go. full Salzburg.

64th minute we get a very nice sequence up the right wing. So Rodman takes the ball from Chloe Kelly, plays it back to Mace, who like I said, is now playing right back. Mace plays it, and then we just see like a bang, bang, bang, passing combination. Mace to coffee, one touch to Rodman, one or maybe two touch from Rodman to Lavelle, I can't remember, and then Lavelle springs Rodman down the line. It's really pretty. and Rodman tries to cut it across,

but her passes a tad behind Smith, who is kind of showing in the box for it, and is cut out by a hustling back, Georgia Stanway, who was just everywhere in this game. So this was like that sequence we just went through on the left side with Rapino, Lavelle, and Horan, but we did it on the right side with Rodman, Coffee, and Lavell again.

And yes, this is what we want, right? This is what we're here for, for me. So give me more of this. Trinity Rodman, welcome to the team. You are not going anywhere, right? If Midge Burst is coming back, I just feel like it's not going to be at the expense of Trinity Rodman after this game. No. I agree.

I mean, this was the most convincing performance I've seen from Rodman with the national team. And it has been pointed out, she hasn't gotten that many opportunities with the national team. This is easily her biggest opportunity. Boy, she seized it. Yeah. To do this against England. Like nuts. It's nuts that we got this, this whole game from her. I know she's been doing it for the league, but again, few, not tons of opportunities for the U.S. When she has, she hasn't looked like this. I don't know. No, no. So to step into this environment against this caliber of opponent.

That's it, man. You're not going anywhere for a while. It's going to take some, some shockers from her to, I think, to play her way out of the roster. Yeah. Agreed. Cook plays another good ball down the right sideline for, a high fullback, I believe it was Mace this time. This was the third time she's done that. And then in the 68th minute, Robin gets a shot. She gathers a Pino set piece that skips through, cuts onto her right foot and blasts it over the goal, earns a talking to from Ali Wagner on the broadcast.

69th minute, some nice progressive soccer from Dunn now, outside of the boot pass to Smith's feet through the lines. and like I said they're just not coming down our left blank anymore so Dunn brought a lot of like I don't know calm and sort of guile a little bit of guile yeah that pass man that pass into Sophia Smith was stupid well the one you know the one that really got me was when she she sort of receives it on the sideline and then sort of turns and flicks it with her right outside of her right foot and then gets it right back and then flicks it right over to heran just Bing Bing

being, I don't think I clocked that on the timeline, but. This is going to be another one interesting one to watch because, you know, I don't know what the long term plan is for Crystal Dunn's return to the team. I don't know if like, okay, well, we'll get her in it left back because, you know, she's played mostly there for me, so for Vladko and for Ellis. So let's just get her in there, let her settle in and then see where it goes or if that's for sure, like the locked in plan for hers to play left back again. but it's one of those where like she's so good that uh even as good as everyone else on our team is

like suddenly no one's job is safe because crystal dun could be coming for your position i don't know how she'll be in the lineup right she'll be in the 11 there's no way that once she's back she's she's a bench player yeah i mean a lot of people have really strong opinions about where she should play on the field and i don't i don't know i'm kind of in i'm here to learn i'm here to learn you know as i'm going through this timeline i'm getting more encouraged about the way the U.S. played in the second half, but a great sequence from the U.S. at the 70-minute mark. It's Rapino to Smith in transition. Smith turns and plays a lovely through ball for Trinity Rodman, who's running in behind. So again, quite vertical, right up

the middle of the field. And Rodman can't quite get the edge on Daly, who pokes it wide. She just shows a little too much ball to Daly. Again, Ali Wagner kind of scolds her for that. But I And I do think Rodman probably could have done better to get a shot off here. But it gets tackled away from her by Daly. And Robin collects it and taps it back to Rapino. And then Rapino just promptly like bangs it out of bounds like 10 yards wide of the goal. I think she was shooting but missed quite comfortably. We're having some success in transition.

Yeah, a little bit of a loose moment from England. And Alana Cook does really well to step up and take it from them. And again, once it gets to Rapino, nice from Rapino to recognize what's open. And England didn't shell up very quickly after that loss. They stayed a little bit too expansive for a little bit too long. And, you know, again, when you get the freeze frame, that ball's going into Sophia Smith with no one on her back. And you see Lavelle and Trinity Rodman sort of in full flight. And you just feel good about that still frame.

You're like, this is good. Again, to pull this off against England. who are a very well-drilled team, totally different from the Canada game that we mentioned earlier as our only other competitive endeavor for the past 12 months because Canada were a mess in these moments.

Like Canada was a shambles. So creating it against Canada didn't feel like we earned anything, but doing it against England is like, oh, we can do this. Yeah. I don't want to put England on this high of a pedestal generally. I mean, they still sing a song about a king,

for God's sake. You love them on. You love the monarchy. But it does matter that, you know, that we're doing this. I also don't want to set us up like we're some plucky underdog pulling this off against Mighty England. That's that's kind of what I feel like I'm saying. But, no, I just like to see our kids getting out there and being able to run. Yeah.

I mean, I would, I am a little frustrated at the lack of coordination in the attack and the final third. Anyway, 76 minute, I'm going to just rush through these last few things. Of course. 76 minute, Stanway shrugs off a coffee challenge and has a shot from the top of the box. It's not a good shot, but it was definitely a dangerous moment. I thought, this is the problem. This is the fear with Sam Coffee. Like, can she hang at this level?

She just gets kind of shrugged off so easily. Okay, so coffee does for sure get rinsed here, right? And it's a, again, it's a choice thing. It's not just a limitation of her, of her, I don't, I don't, I don't, she's not as athletic as solvent, right? Am I okay saying that? No, she's definitely not as athletic as solvian. But she didn't run up into that.

She sort of, I guess she, I should say, she chose to run up into her athletic limitations here. She had it contained. And then she chooses to, again, like, take this pursuit angle as the balls laid off and move from one player to the other that she just can't execute. So it's a, it's a combination of, like, her choices and her athleticism. So once she does get rinsed, it's not a great situation for our centerbacks to be in. But this is another low light for me for Alana Cook because Cook and Germa have the shooter bracketed here where as long as they just push her funnel her to each other, it's pretty well contained.

And Cook just gets turned. So Cook gets her hips flipped. And that's how you end up with basically an uncontested shot instead of a shot that's contested by two centerbacks. So it felt like in watching the replay, I was like, man, is she just not well? And then I'm almost like glad that the next time they zoomed out, Cook is down on the ground. And it was better for me that something had happened that she needed treatment. And that's why she got spun this badly because it would have been worse if there was nothing wrong with her and she got spun this badly. Yeah.

Okay. The ref has one more surprise up her sleeve. 81st minute set piece falls to Lavelle and she has a shot just immediately and unapologetically calls for a penalty and gets it. The referee obliges points to the spot. But on video review it hit Lauren Hemp in the bottom, not the hand at all. Penalty overturned. This is great technique from Lowe.

in the pre-VAR era because asking for the penalty that confidently, like, of course this is a penalty. You know, do the right thing here, referee. Like, that's great work. Now that they've brought video into it, you've got to convince more people. You can't just convince the human referee. You've got to convince the eye in the sky and no luck there. That's a little bit tougher. That was not a penalty.

and so it was called off still 2-1. We get Alyssa Thompson 17 on for Rapino to make her national team debut. Congratulations to her and everyone who knows her and loves her. That's awesome. Sanchez came on for Rodman and Sauerbrun came on for Germa. Lavelle moved to the wing into Rodman's spot. Sanchez moved into the midfield.

These are players I like. I like Sanchez. I like to see Alyssa Thompson on there. There's just not that much to say about their time on the field. It was un-eventful. I mean, there was a little bit of back and forth, but nothing really to speak of.

I thought there was a good, 88th minute, there was a good dribble from Lavelle into the center circle. She beats two defenders, but her pass through the gut of England's defense, again, very vertical, was cut out easily. And then the last few minutes of the game. game England kind of put us under the kosh.

I didn't think the subs had much impact at all. No, it was very business-like from England at the end. And again, they're good. And they showed they can do this kind of thing. So a good lesson here is don't fall behind to England in Australia or New Zealand. Yeah, well, I think we'll beat them. We'll beat them the next time we play them. It just seems, I guess in closing, we have the same attacking third problems we had

against Nigeria and against Canada in the Conccaf Final. We just didn't get, kind of like you alluded to at the beginning of the show, we just didn't get dozens of opportunities to try to compensate

for that lack of precision and coordination. We did get robbed on the Rodman goal, robbed of so much. It was taken from us. Our joy. Spain,

Spain coming up on Tuesday. You know, speaking of like supporting women in soccer this is not the Spain game that we anticipated their roster is heavily depleted by players who I believe turned down call-ups as a sign of protest

or players who weren't called up because they're protesting the conditions the teams playing under so again we're not going to be able to play these women's games without clouds off-field cloud sort of hanging over them so full support to the Spanish women's team in the players

and then obviously hoping to see taking it back to the actual on-field stuff. Are you hopeful that we'll see some kind of a cleaner attacking third play? I'm not at all at this point. I'm like, nope, this is just what we are. We don't seem really like we're trying to fix this or that we even think it's an issue that were wildly inefficient

with our decision-making in the final third? Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we're going to look much better in that regard. I mean, we could end up, you know, we're so dynamic, we could still end up scoring five goals against Spain. Although Spain is, you know,

Spain really gave England a hard time at the Euros. So they're, even at half strength or whatever they'll be as a result of these protests, which I think mostly have to do with, like, I don't know, I was listening to the Spanish football podcast, talk about it, Sid Lowe. And he, I think it's his sense that basically the players don't like the coach.

Coach isn't very good. And so the, they're mad at, so the players are upset with the Federation for not listening to the players and doing something about a coach who is subpar. So it's a little different, it's a little different category of situation than what, you know, the Sally Yates investigation and like just outright sexual misconduct at least at least so far what the players have said no no super important distinction of course yeah uh so yeah i don't think i don't think we're gonna i think we're gonna look that different maybe maybe the fact that their weekend will allow us to to exploit them more and i think you know this this england performance

isn't one that it's going to send anyone to hit the panic buttons either so it's not like this was a fiasco and it's like oh we've got to change everything we're doing uh so i don't think there's anything that you know if we didn't try to figure this out over the last year there's nothing about this england performance it's like we've got to we've got to fix it we just lost to england at wembley stadium and we got dominated because we didn't get dominated right like like you said even just going through the recap left you feeling a little bit better about it than than maybe you did 30 minutes ago. So I'm not hopeful. So now I'm actually going to focus more on those Red Bull moments and just be like, just give us

some good Red Bull moments. Give us a couple, a couple of possession sequences where we look slick and tidy because we pull a couple off per game. Well, let me just mention two more things about the game. One, I should give the possession numbers. England outpossessed a 69 to 31%. So that's pretty significant possession outperformance. And then the other thing is Vlako did say after the game that the night was a win for women's soccer in general

and to have such a huge crowd at Wembley for this game. And he was really proud and appreciative of the U.S. players for, you know, despite the circumstances leading up to the game for, you know, coming out and being professional and doing their best. which I think is an important thing to keep in mind that this is this like the players have said this has been very exhausting horrific for them you know so credit to them for putting on a good show despite that yeah I definitely want to reiterate the on this on field performance was not like a fiasco so yeah they were they were solid and to play that well or to play that competently with everything else going on even more credit to this group Okay. I think that's it, right? Yeah, we'll be back after Espania. Yeah, after Espania.

We also had the Monday review coming on Monday. Funny how that works. The Monday review on a Monday. And then Waki and I interviewed Michele Giannone, the Tejudejane, sideline reporter, reporter and producer for Univision, yesterday, but we'll drop that sometime next week. It was a great.

Looking forward to that one too. You guys are just destroying these interviews. Plowing ahead. That's what we're doing. Let me just say, you know, if you want that full interview, the full interview with Jenny Chu, the full interview with Jimmy Conrad, I think it's all worth it to get the full interview. And if you want those Monday reviews on your phone every week, join the Patreon.

The link is in the show notes. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.