Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #324: Spain v USWNT recap

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Vlatko out? Yeah, but it won't happen. So he should buckle down and ban crossing, hire a final third coach and get this team to start playing soccer in the attack. This needs to be fixed.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 catalog of historic recaps we're working on. 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. women lost two zero to Spain in Pompona, in a performance that was less inspired than the loss to England last week. We generated very little intentional danger in this game. We're going to try to make this brief, in part because it was such a chore to watch. Outside of the performance of Olga Carmona, at left back for Spain and that lovely second half goal from Esther Gonzalez,

I don't know that there was really that much to be excited about in the game for either side. Greg? Yeah. Yeah, that's that about sums it up, Bells. This was, uh, this, this, this felt like a, a pretty dull 90 minutes. I mean, uh, I should say the storylines going into the game, uh, on the Spanish side, uh, added, added to the drama. And, and, you know, for better or worse, uh, I think Fowdy kind of commented on this. Uh, the result probably like has a material effect on, on, on, you know, for better or worse, uh, I think Fowdy kind of commented on, the outcomes of that drama.

Yeah, basically a bunch of Barcelona players for Spain not in this camp. I mean, use that as shorthand because they have a dispute with the Federation over, they don't like the coach, right?

Yeah, they don't like the coach. They seem to have voiced their concerns about the coach for a while now through first internal channels and then publicly. So now that it's like becoming a public dispute and the federation has heavily backed their coach. This kind of an outcome like does have an effect on that,

I think on that sort of public perception. Yeah, because they got enough players who at least aren't quite as upset with the coach, enough good players that they can beat the USA. Fairly comfortably. I mean, I mean, they took, took a moment of real quality in the second half and kind of a scramble goal in the first half, but the US was not threatening as we mentioned. Let's stick to our word and try to stay brief here. Go straight to the lineups. It was Casey Murphy and goal, Haley Mace, Alana Cook, Becky Sauerbrun,

and Carson Pickett across the back line. We got that same midfield of Andy Sullivan, Rose Lavelle, and Lindsay Horan, and then Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and Megan Rapino across the front line. Smith definitely as the number nine in this formation. So we're looking at the same front six from the England game. Emily Fox out for, I believe, concussion protocol replaced by ticket. And then Sophia Huerta, Vladko said it was on a minute's restriction. She's replaced by Haley Mace. And then Germa, Naomi Germa dropped, despite being, you know, I think easily our best player in the England match, certainly our best defender.

Replaced by Sauerbrun. There's speculation that that was. was essentially a courtesy to Germa's EndoSEL playoff fitness. Yeah, I've heard something about her hamstring from sources close to the camp. Okay. So there's like some hamstring concerns. And then obviously Murphy replacing Neier. So some rotation, which has been consistent with what we've been seeing from Vlacho for most of this year.

Yeah, we're going to get into that midfield and talk about it. But the Spanish lineup was Misa Rodriguez in goal. Ojeane Hernandez at right back. So it's kind of a back five or a three four or a three, five, two. I'm not exactly sure. But Oaxne Hernandez was the right wing back. And then Laia Codina, Rosio Galvez, and Ivana Andres were the centerbacks. And then Olga Carmona was the left wing back.

What a player she is. Matana Lopez, Maite Oroz, and Claudia Zornosa in the midfield, and then Alba Redondo and Esther Gonzalez at Stryker. So this is going to be, I mean, Gonzalez is also a good player. I mean, that goal she scored was a pure delight to witness. And Hernandez was pretty good, too. Not only did she provide the assist on that goal, but she put another one on Gonzalez's head a few minutes earlier than that

that Gonzalez steered just wide of the post. So do you want to take the first, you want to take the first chronology item? Yeah, just because if you've been listening to our recaps, you're not going to be surprised that this stuck out to me instantly. And shades, probably how I watched the rest of the game, but I do think this is representative of what we are. my timeline says 0-00 to 0-23 we've attempted three crosses

that's in my notes and so this just goes to what I think is at you know at this point something we just have to accept as what Vlatko feels is the best way for this team to attack or at least something that he's not trying to materially change which is hammer the ball into the box so off the off our kickoff it's our ball We go back to Sullivan, Sullivan lays it to Cook. Cook hits it upfield in the vicinity of Horan in sort of the left half space. Horan wins the header,

which actually puts Megan Rapino kind of in behind, puts her in a pretty good position here. I mean, she's got a defender on her hip. Rapino without even really looking, just attempts to hammer the ball into the box. Like, and when you freeze it, it's like, okay, well, Spain's two centerbacks are, you know, deeper than our players and they've got a good cushion.

So this isn't going to be anything dangerous, even if she smashes this into the box. She doesn't even make good, contact with it because she kind of gets tackled as she's trying it. But she regains control of the situation, shrewdly, like, escapes that pressure and turns and is able to face a field again and promptly smashes the ball into the box. And it's just like, okay, here we go. It goes over everybody. There's no, there's no threat. Spain half deal with it. Goes out to the opposite corner of the box, where we control it into Haley Mace, who we free up, again, very pretty, pretty

effectively to get her now into the good space on the right side on the right flank and she immediately fires the ball like way out of bounce trying to cross it and I'm just like what what is this what are we doing what is going on what what are the decisions here what who who's in charge of like laying out what our decision trees are in the final third and has there been any emphasis on this over the past 10 months. And the only thing I come away with is no. Because if there is, if there was any kind of emphasis on trying to change what we're doing, we should have seen it in the first 25 seconds here. And instead, again, three attempted crosses. I'm, I'm not just going to keep repeating myself the way we have been for the past eight months of these friendlies. So I'm, I'm just laying

it all out here right now. Seconds zero through 23. I was already leaning like, okay, Vladko out. I was going to ask you, is it Vlako Out time? Should we talk about it? Yeah, because the timeline sucks. So let's do some other things. I have some clips to play from listeners. I really pressured some people to give us some voice memos. But why don't we talk about Blocko out first?

Yeah, Vlato Out. I mean, this isn't just a huge knee-jerk reaction to us losing these two games. It's again, it's 10 months of what I see is like zero attempt to try to fix this. And it's been very obvious. It's been staring us in the face since Uzbekistan, even in those big wins, that this is kind of what we're doing. And it's not going to give us the best chance at success. We keep talking about how this team already has an absurdly high floor because what we have is a collection of incredibly talented players. Right now, that's all it is.

And if that's all of Locke's, you know, getting out of them, anyone can do that. The player pool is not going to change. A new coach isn't going to have been Sophia Smith and Mallory Pugh and go a different direction. Like, whoever comes in is going to have these talented players and you almost can't get less out of them in the attacking third. It kind of looks like there just is no coach in some ways. Because I'm not an expert on how to coach high-level soccer, obviously. I'm just a guy. But you know, you see the way Horan and Lavelle get on the ball.

It does feel like just give the ball to Lindsay or Rose, and everybody run away from them downfield, and we'll see what happens. I mean, I guess we'll get into a bunch of the big picture stuff right now. You know, I'm seeing a lot of things that this midfield just doesn't work. And I'm certainly not going to say that this is for sure our best midfield three, which is, you know, what we've been running out as clearly I think in Blockco's mind the best three, which is Horan, Lavelle, Sullivan. But they also aren't nearly like the lowest hanging problem.

Like what we are generating an attack still doesn't reflect the amount of like field territory we gain using this midfield. This midfield and this group of 11 still gains plenty of field position to get more than we're getting. Like it's not like we can never get into the box. It's not like we never get into the final third. Right. It is entirely like the easiest thing for me to address would be the decisions and execution in the final. third because not to mince words like it for it is as bad as it can be those decisions in execution are as bad as they can be given the talent available like it's it they're there's not

so horrible but that's because the players are just really good it could be so so much better it could it could be so much more than what it is and this is where it's just like okay the coach has to demand that like the coach has to be the one hammering home what we need to do once we get the ball into these spaces and if if we're not getting that from the coach which, you know, throwing Pete Julie Earts in for Sullivan doesn't change that. Like, it would probably, it would surely make us better. But we aren't getting carved up going the other way. Like, Spain and England didn't absolutely run riot over us running back at our goal.

The problem for me is massively final third decisions execution. Yeah. Well, there's two, I guess there's two things we should bring up. One is the, you know, the Yates report. we mentioned it in the last recap. That is a heavy weight, I think, on all the players. There's a lot to sort of have to be confronted with once again. So there's talk, there's been talk in our Discord,

and I think there's talk all over the internet on like, you know, we got to give the team a little bit of a pass because of that. I'm definitely sympathetic to that. But I think, I guess your point, one of the points you just made in a point that I think is true is, these problems in the final third are not unique to these two games. This is how we've been playing. And it's been papered over by our talent, like you mentioned,

and by just an incredible dynamism of our high press against inferior opponents. So we get tons of opportunities in the Concaf W championship, mostly by just running down people's throats and taking the ball from them in their own box and then we have a scoring chance. So I guess I think we can sort of like set, we can acknowledge that and then sort of set it aside for the purposes of this conversation

about Vlako, right? Yes, for sure. For sure, this problem goes beyond that. If these were just two lackluster games that were sort of outliers and sort of, you know, the style of play, okay, that would totally be fair. But it's not that. Like, again, we've been talking about it forever and how it hasn't mattered in the past nine months because, again, we talk about just the sheer volume of low percentage chances that

we create is going to eventually come good against these weaker teams for a couple of reasons. One, you know, these like the crossing that I keep sort of railing against, the weaker teams will be less organized to deal with it initially. So we will get a little bit more joy even out of that first ball in, even if it's not an ideal crossing scenario. And two, when we don't get the joy against a weaker team, we're still just going to out-talent them in the seconds immediately following to turn those low percentage plays into medium percentage plays. And over, 50 attempts of that, we'll get our goal and we'll, you know, win ugly. When you increase the talent and when you beat the, when you try to beat the teams that you're

going to have to beat to win the trophies that the U.S. women's team should be expected to compete for, that edge just vanishes very quickly, right? Like, the teams are just way more organized for the initial ball in and they're way less likely to just get overpowered in the moments following that initial ball. And so that's what we're seeing. And that's how we're seeing the actual dangerous chances drop so sharply. Let me, yeah, let me play a clip from Tara, who I think has some sympathy for Vlako in that he still has the job of ushering out a golden genente, a platinum generation, if you will, and bringing in a younger generation.

Let me just let her speak for herself here. Hello. My question is, how do we embrace becoming a younger generation? team. And I mean that in a bit of an existential crisis type of way. Like, Becky is the spokesperson for all women's soccer players in crisis. Megan is getting standing ovations every time she's on a field in the United States. Horan has been an incredible player for us. Morgan has been an incredible player for us. But I want to know, are we capable of fully embracing a younger team? let me know. Let me know. I feel that.

Like, when I watch Horan give the ball away, even though she does some great things, even in a game like this, she's obviously a quality player. When I see her give the ball away and Spang go the other way, you know, three, four times, and stepping on the ball,

slowing down the pace of play, trying to hit a hero ball. This is how she's been playing. This is how Lindsay Iran has been playing for a while. see Megan Rapino not tracking back on defense. And like you said, banging crosses in just blindly. I am like,

let's just move on. Let's move on to some younger options. Sam Coffey came in. We had our bet. Sam Coffey came in. She wasn't perfect. She hit a switch that went like 10 yards over Crystal Dunn's head. But there was a sequence of passing in the 79th minute

right before a Sanchez shot where it was Huert Sanchez, coffee, and Thompson, Alyssa Thompson, the 17-year-old. So the babies. I mean,

these are the children. Yeah, it was the best sequence we had all the game. I know that they're, you know, you could take issue with some of the decisions

in the sequence, but they're, all they're doing is just playing quickly and moving off the ball. And it takes it like a certain level of hunger and humility to play that way.

You know, you got to, and I just don't know if I see that from, uh, Iran and even LaVelle. right now. So obviously we don't, well, maybe you have an answer to Tara's question.

I don't really, but I sympathize with the spirit of it. Yeah, it's one where, you know, that sequence in particular shows that the kids can do things. And so it's not like, oh, the kids aren't ready. That was by far the best sequence of the game for me. And again, just shows that if we had embraced that kind of play eight months ago, going through and then through the summer going through the W championship and essentially forced the players to do it. They're all capable of it. Like Lindsay Horan can play that way.

We see to do it. We know Rose Lovell can play like that. That was like one of her first qualities that popped to me when I would watch her play, even though like Wisconsin-Madison, was this total awareness of how the pieces were moving. And that's what that is, right? It's that awareness of how the pieces move and then the willingness to join into that rhythm. Haran was like that. Rapino can do that.

Like she has that guile. So they can do that. We can do that with the grownups. And that's what I wish it would be. We just need to demand it of them. And that's, for me, that's on Vlato. Like Vlato has to say,

this is how we're going to play. And if we did that, I don't think there would be any issue blending the generations here. I think, I don't think that the, that the olds were using currently are, you know, it's not like when you're trying to blend

Abby Wambach. with this kind of a play. Like that's a different, that's a different thing. The grownups we have can play, uh, the slick stuff that the kids are trying to do too. Um,

we, we, again, we just need to require it. Vlato, it's on Vlato for me. Uh, so I guess that's where I kind of land.

I know there's, there's other issues with, with Rupino in particular in her ability to defend in the way that we have been defending to generate chances. Um, and she hurts us in that regard, I think. Uh,

but, but otherwise, I, I don't think it's something that has to be forced onto the group. Like, I do think that you can blend this with the right managerial approach and get good returns out of all of those players on the field. Let's get another clip. This is from high-octane FB. Do we think Vladko will actually make a significant lineup change prior to the World Cup?

I don't. I think he's stuck with it through the terrible Olympic performance, where we saw the exact same. same problems. This midfield cannot play the 433 that they're being asked. They get nothing going forward. They get passed through easily. There's just no way this configuration is going to consistently beat the best teams, as we saw in this window.

Can they still sleepwalk to third place when Katerine McCarillo, various other injuries come back? Yeah, probably. I mean, they beat Canada just a couple months ago. But there's just no way this is getting fixed. without a systematic change in my opinion. He seems more focused on the midfield, which is not,

you're not, you're not so convinced that that's the thing. I'm really not. I'm really not. And I get it. I think they're sort of a, kind of the easy target to say, because it is easier to just sort of change personnel.

And I will say, Sanchez versus like Haran would, does offer so much more that sort of pass and slash player. And we saw it in that sequence that we've talked about. I mean, she makes several slashing runs and she identifies other slashing. So it is that contagious rhythm movement soccer that I think is right there for us to grasp onto. But I'd push back against us being passed through very easily. Like Spain weren't lighting, again, Spain weren't lighting up our goalposts, right?

Like they got like four real shots. scored two of them. Yeah. England weren't lighting us up either. Half their, half their expected goals, I think, came on the penalty. So I'd take some exception to saying that we get played through. I don't think we're a soft buttery midfield.

I know England was able to sort of smother us with their own possession, very much defended via possession, where Spain weren't able to do that, even though Spain sort of have the reputation for being a very technical team. And they showed plenty of glimpses of that, which is very easy on the eye. You know, they have a lot of that nuance in the individual play and that understanding of each other and movement. But they weren't just like keeping the ball at will, right? Like we had plenty of the ball in that game relative to England.

And again, I think our midfield got the ball forward. We got the ball forward a lot against Spain. And it's, I think the only area we absolutely need. to address is that final third. But you tell me, you tell me if I'm, if I'm too, if I'm too focused on that area in particular. Well, I guess, I don't know if you're asking me to tell you, but I'll tell, I'll tell you in any case. It does seem like, yes, the final third is a huge problem, but also combination passing through the midfield is, It's just so slow.

Everything's so slow and plotting. Lindsay's stepping on the ball and kind of like waiting for a defender to arrive on her back so she can hold them off for a while. And then she passes it backwards. I mean, the middle third doesn't seem like a picnic either right now. I'll grant that too. I don't think there's rhythm passing happening really anywhere on the field, which again goes back to still. goes back to me to the manager because I think the players are crucial. I would be curious to see Sanchez-Lavelle partnership.

And I do think Horan would be the one to make way for that. But I don't know what other configurations people would be really excited to see. Like it might be a crystal done in for Horan or Lavelle. Have I got a clip for you? This is Ryan McNulty in Milwaukee. All right. I think we can pretty well conclude. that whatever we're doing with our center mids isn't working and whatever we're doing to create

attack isn't really working. So I feel like I have the liberty to unleash my most unhinged take that we need to free Crystal Dunn and play her with Naomi Germa as a double pivot and fill the gap left by Macario and Alex Morgan with Lindsay. Haran Haran. Heran doesn't want to

midfield. Rapino hasn't tracked back defensive reasons Barack was in office. So why not let Lindsay

do what she wants to do up top? pair her with Sophia Smith and Trinity Rodman and just

put the back line in absolute hell and then let Germa Dunn and Rose cook in the midfield.

Yeah, that's my most unhinged take. I await my arrest. Thank you. Well, there's a lot going on. A lot going on there. It's pretty unhinged. Iran at the nine, Germa and Dunn as a double pivot. I mean, Grant Wall said in his postgame dispatch that he thought we have to go to a double pivot.

So, yeah, a lot of people are talking about the midfield. I don't know. That's one configuration that is, you know, in the room. in the universe of possibilities. So we'd be taking what could be our best centerback out of her centerback role. I mean, that's a big jump too.

German had a couple of good games. It's tough to say that that's enough to say she's now our number one centerback. We've got a generationally world-class centerback in Sauerbrun that still is right there. And Cook, I don't want to say she had a rough window, but it wasn't like a, it wasn't a,

banner window for her. Is that fair? The first goal against England was at least partly on her and then she had a giveaway that was pretty bad in the second half there. I'm reluctant to take Germa out of contention for starting center back already to put her in the midfield. I'm reluctant to try to fill the Macario, Morgan hole because presumably that will be filled by Macario and Morgan by the summer. So that right now might be a a solution without a problem. It really, and again,

I got to just keep pushing back on, on the center midfield or being, center midfield trio being like the problem. And I think, I think I'll have to go to the tape on it. Yeah, this might be, this might require some extra effort on your part, Greg.

Oh man. So in the, on the timeline, we, we did have, we were kind of on the front foot, I'd say for the first 10 minutes or so. Spain looked pretty sloppy.

and kind of nervous to me. But, like, I'm not going to go through every time we, things fell apart in the final third, because that would be just absolutely tedious. But it did repeatedly. We just didn't, we couldn't create any danger. We got our first shot of the game, and we only had two shots in the first half.

Neither of them on target. But we got our first one, comes on a nice ball from Carson Pickett down the line for Horan. So sort of a curling, behind the defense ball. Horan makes an end to outrun to get on it and then she beats her defender to the end line and lifts the ball across,

crosses it with her left foot. Doesn't really cause that much problem initially, but it gets knotted out to the top of the box. Haley Mace races in and collects it, cuts one defender and then has a shot with her left foot that is blocked, but looked dangerous.

Look like it was heading goalward. Do you want to respond to that one. I'm just going to use this opportunity to say Carson Pickett had several, I thought, very good entry passes on the floor into players and pockets, which is something I'm always, again, going to make mental note of. Spain gets a set piece in the 21st minute and a header on target, but not too scary. And we're just, I mean, we're definitely, I have in my notes, definitely in crossing mode

after the 20th minute. get a brutal giveaway from Horan in the 31st minute, a couple touches and a pass across the top of the box, and Claudia Sonosa has a shot from 20 yards that flashes wide of the post. It's starting to feel like maybe Spain's the more dangerous team in this game. Our second shot comes, of the second half,

the only other one comes on a moment of just physical excellence from Sophia Smith. She receives the ball in zone 14. She holds off centerback. She turns the center back. She takes a couple strides and then rips one with her right foot. And that is blocked. Those are our two shots in the whole first half.

Those are the shots we generated. And then Spain scores. And it's a corner kick in general. I think their corner kicks were more crisper than ours, generally put in a more dangerous spot. And this was one of those. There's a shot. The ball is blocked.

Shot is blocked. and it pings around. Nobody really deals with it. I think Haram was the closest American to the ball when Alba Redondo kind of passes it with the outside of her boot into the corner through a crowd of bodies. 1-0 Spain.

Yeah, it's a bit messy. I love to go through these set pieces like a dozen times and each time just focus on a single player to see how they react to the moment, whether they're dialed in the entire time. and I honestly think for the most part our players were. The one player who maybe could have done more to actually prevent this would have been Sullivan,

just because she's still in like an athletic stance trying to read what's going to happen, but the ball's gone over her head. And she's kind of doing her little hop watching the play. But she's outside of the frame of the goal and she's not defending anybody else. So it's one of those things where like reflexively, especially as a goalkeeper, like I want my defenders to just crunch way the hell in. on these scrambles to become extra goalkeepers because you're not doing anything else. So just as it's pinging around pinballing, if you can just get your body between the ball

and some portion of the goal, that's one less slot for that ball to find its way through. And that's just, I mean, super nitpicking. I don't think the area she would have taken away would have been where the ball ended up anyway. But I guess I'm pouncing on it. I'm pouncing on it. So living out, coffee. end. You're looking for that opening. But that's basically my way of saying this isn't really, this is barely like preventable

of the US. This is just one of those things we're like, okay, over time, you're going to lose out on a couple of goal mouth scrambles. You know, that's the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously the bigger issue is us not being able to create any chances. Ashley Hatch comes on for Rodman at the half. Rodman had taken a knock to the ankle.

She didn't really have much of a first half and Hatch didn't have much of a second half Neither of them really had much impact on the game So Trinity Mayway at half I do have a quick note on her that we didn't mention in the timeline And that was what I thought was maybe our best attacking sequence in the first half And this was 24th minute and it wasn't it wasn't like a Extended possession it was it was definitely a transition moment It came when her ran actually in the build up gave the ball away, which is, I know that's something you've been talking about.

Spain then had a chance to run at us, but they were sloppy with it, kind of gave it right back to Horan. And then we instantly worked the ball up field. Sullivan with a really nice ball into Megan Rapino, Rapino with a really slick, potentially a croif unnecessary, but that's, that is actually something I appreciate an unnecessary croif layoff in the midfield to Lavell to run onto. Lavelle Pings at first time with her left. It's a gorgeous ball to Sophia,

who is now running into the channel wide of the centerbacks. And Sophia is right at home in this situation. I know we've talked about her. We talked about her role as a striker against England. Like this is where if we're using her as a striker, this is really good use of her. So we play it behind her. She gets to run onto it.

And now she's faced up with their centerback. And this was where Trinity kind of, I think, let us down here. And I'm not trying to be too hard. on her because she's the kid here and she's a winger and so just didn't quite make the right run but sophia's got it finally in the dangerous zone right and we need someone to fill that space that sophia smith would normally be in since she's gone uh and instead trinity kind of just hangs out at the far post floating wide which allows spain to just sort of sit in a shell in front of the goal and not have to really do any decision making um so sophia kind of holds it dances a little bit megand ripino makes a run kind of

into her space to crowd it, but Rapino's just trying to do something into the space, because again, Spain are just sitting with their defensive block intact. Lavelle eventually tries to make the run in for the cutback, but is too late. She can't get there in time. Rodman was the only player who could do it. So what was a very promising attack leads to a cutback that Spain can clear from their own six pretty comfortably. That was my like one ding on Trinity for the entire window.

Got a report without fear or favor. But it still goes back to like what we need to work on more than anything is focus on getting the ball into that man city zone. And then the movements and decisions once were there. And that despite what I think I'm marching against the flow here against the tide, I don't think it is as much a center midfield issue as everyone else. really think it's just that phase of play. Okay, well, let me play one more clip just to show how much you are marching against the tide. It's unanimous.

I'm alone to center here. One of the big takeaways for me was it seems like we lack chemistry in the midfield. The ball kind of just gets into the midfield and it either bounces around and we turn it over or send a ball too far past our attacking player. obviously the front three is a bit of concern for the last game but that stuff will kind of figure itself out with players coming back but Fletco really should focus on finding the right players and the right roles in the midfield and figure out what that three is going to look like I mean I guess you would disagree that the stuff in the front three will work itself out

because it hasn't but let me ask you this I won't make you respond to Chris because I feel like you've already sort of responded to that idea. But unless you really want to, go ahead. Well, here's the thing. Like I said before, I do agree that we don't pass with rhythm anywhere on the field. So our midfield three, again, we saw how it can be done with the way England were doing it and just toying with us in midfield. Because when you set out to do that, you can really show how naive we look with our

constant attempts at the home run ball at the hero ball, which Horan is guilty of, Levelle guilty of that, Sullivan and coffee less so. I think because again, there's that understanding that, hey, we're not the heroes of this team. We're very much role players. Horan and Lavelle are in a different tier and they sort of act accordingly. So I do think that can be corrected. I think it's there and I think it can be corrected. Okay.

I just right now I don't know that it's unique to those too. It's just team-wide as you move into the attack attempts at Hero Ball. It just looks like in an absence of clear ideas. Yes. They're just, we're just defaulting to give the rock to Lindsay and Rose and see what happens. Yep. And then their job is to try to get it out wide to somebody who the moment you have an opening to hit it into the box, you hit it into the box. Yeah.

So like, so this final third, I asked people for a 20 second clip for us to play in the episode and you said, well, how about a 1.7 second clip, hire a final third coach. And I guess, so one question I have is how would that, how would the final third coaching go? Is this, is it, would it be pretty video heavy? Like show, show Sophia and Trinity and Rose and Lindsay, the video from this game, be like, look, we've got to have people filling these lanes and you got to be making this decision here, play the simple pass here. We have to do it. And I mean, what does that look like?

Like for me, it's eight months ago you ban crosses. Like you forbid your team from crossing the ball. Like, hey, right now we can't cross it. These games are experimental. You can always fall back on a cross. Like it's not, there's no sophistication necessary to bang a ball into the box when you have an opening. Like ban crosses, force the team to find those ways to combine because every player you're combining with is really good. And if you do that, you get those moments like we had in the 80th minute, 79th minute, whatever it was, where four players with minimal U.S. women's national team experience, very little experience playing together.

One of them is a 16-year-old middle school kid. That's not how middle school works. Like she's doing it. You know what I mean? She's doing it against Spain in her first ever window in it for the U.S. It can be done. And it takes some work to iron out. like people stepping on each other's toes with runs and hesitations to make the run.

Even on that one, I think Thompson hesitated a little bit to make a run and then like didn't quite commit to it. And you have to work through those kinks. But it's there and we would, I'm confident that we would pull it off. And even while we're struggling with it, we would still be more dangerous than we have been doing what we've been doing. Okay.

So Vlako out or at least band crosses. It's going to be late now. I mean. I don't know. We've got the Germany games coming up, and again, we'll have to see. You know, we talked about it after the England game. We weren't so bad against England that I had any hope that he would really, like, hammer on this stuff if he even thinks it's a problem. After this game, where we generated next to nothing, he did come out and say, first, and I don't know if it's coach speak, you know, just, you know, taking the heat.

But he said, the first thing we're going to do is look at what, like, myself and the coaching staff can do. to better prepare us to create more danger or something to that effect to give us a better chance to win these games. So that's the right, that's the right language. Again, I wish we would have been thinking about those things for the past calendar year. But we'll have to see if he's really going to do that against Germany or what that means to him. Because we're not. Fingers crossed.

We do a lot of finger crossing around here, don't we? He's not getting fired, right? on these two outcomes. He just ran through Concaf and I don't know. I don't know what the palace injury is. Probably not. Probably not.

Let's let's wrap this up, do the rest of the timeline. So Rapino crossed to Horan at the backpost, steers it wide with her head in the 51st minute. That was our third shot of the game. Right around the hour mark we get done on for Pickett, which is nice to see. Again, Sam Coffee for Sullivan,

Sophia Huerta, like you said, on a minutes restriction for Haley Mace, and then Ashley Sanchez on for Megan Rapino a couple minutes later. And then in the 72 minute, Spain scores their second goal, and it was a peach. A quick one to undoes Crystal Dunn out wide, and Ojane Hernandez surges into the final third, puts a cross right onto Esther Gonzalez, who opens up in the air,

side foot volleys it with her left foot into the side netting. Just gorgeous, a gorgeous goal. Two-zero Spain. And at this point, the U.S. has three shots, none on target. Yeah, and if you want to break down the goal, like there's little pieces of blame to go around. Like, again, Dun overcommits upfield to sort of let herself then get beat behind. Sauerbrun finds herself a little bit in no man's land, which had happened a few minutes earlier right after those subs had been made. Spain had had another cross that

They actually got themselves into a 3v2 in the box To try to get on the end of the cross Because Sauerbren kind of gotten into no man's land So Huerta had to get really tight with Cook Leaving a totally free player At the far post Not like way wide like literally at the far post So I clocked both those for Sauerbrun

I'm just needing to tighten that up a little bit But mostly that's mostly that's just tip your hat to Spain. Yeah. Yeah. I was a little surprised to see Dun get done like that. But, you know. What we've gotten used to seeing her do was if she gets there a little bit late

and the Spain player receives or releases the ball is for Dunn to put her hip into her and put her into the ports. Yeah. So I was kind of surprised she didn't go that route. Well, okay. So we talked about the 79th minute sequence of passing already from Sanchez, coffee, Huerta, and. and Thompson.

It was just nice to see. I don't think there was anything super sophisticated about it. It was just sort of play a pass, look for a place to go, to move next, pass and move. That's what they were doing, and it was good for a little while there. Probably the only moment like that in the game. And then we got a speculative shot from Smith. Oh, by the way, that sequence ended with Sanchez taking a shot with her right foot that was blocked by a centerback inside the same.

and then there's a speculative shot from Smith in the 80th minute, a corner followed by a corner from coffee that Horan can't steer on frame with her head. Sanchez shoots again in the 83rd minute after picking up a squibbed clearance at the edge of the box. It's a pretty tame effort with her left foot. And then we get another set piece header in the 88th minute. So that's five of our eight shots in that little flurry of activity in the, you know, from the 79th to the 88th. And so you're either saying that's game state or you're saying Sanchez needs to be starting all of these games from now. Well, I don't even know if I'm saying that.

I mean, I don't know that Sanchez has been, has made a airtight case for herself, you know, relative to the competition. But I'd go for it. I'd like it. I'd like to see it. We said this, I think through the W championship was that Sanchez as a player, I think, and because of her tendencies, because of her profile, she puts way more pressure on the Man City zone than I think any of our other midfielders, including Rose Lavelle at this point.

Roselvelel should be thriving, either getting into that Man City zone or springing other players into it. And we're not getting enough of it from her right now. But when Sanchez is in, regardless of who she's playing next to you, whether it's Rapino or whether it was like Querta getting involved in this one, in the child, Thompson. I mean, I'm saying that with a huge amount of respect for what Thompson stepped in and looked like in these games. She was fine, yeah.

Yeah. Sanchez just looks the part of somebody who wants to get into that danger zone. She's not looking for a home run ball. She's not looking for the hero ball immediately. It very much is like, hey, let's work this into this space together through coordinated movement and passing. She did draw some remonstration from Sophia Huerta when she took that left-footed shot. Huerta was all alone streaming up the right side. But I do agree.

Sanchez is, she plays, she loves to play football, you know? You know what I'm saying? I do. I do know what you're saying. And that's my like one case where like, okay, this selection issue because of the tendencies, if there's no other direction being given to the team, this, you know, Sanchez for like Iran could actually increase the amount of soccer we play in the final third.

Yeah. Germany visits the United States on November 10th and November 13th. Those games are in Miami and New York, I believe. I think that's all we got on this game. Thanks, Greg. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see ya.