Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #349: The Netherlands on Saturday, we keep celebrating

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Greg, Vince, Belz and Watke enjoy the moment, talk about the goal on Tuesday for a while, and look ahead to Saturday.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 this year), plus access to the Discord including live call-in shows and round-the-clock access to other reasonable USMNT and USWNT fans online, by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, we're going Acapella until we lose. Seems fair, right? We've earned it. We sure have. Before we get to the Netherlands, who we play on Saturday, 10 a.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Central. We got to keep talking about this goal. Everybody's been watching the tactical cam video of it.

You know, the up high behind the Iranian goal. view of it. And I mean, I probably watched it 100 times last night. No joke. It's so, so beautiful. Man, it's always nice when you can get a tactical cam view like that. I actually think the last one I actually remember watching was last World Cup when Belgium, RIP, they just tied Croatia so they're out.

Shout out to Tieri. But they, they, When they scored that goal against Japan, right, to move on. The Lukaku dummy, right? Yeah, yeah, the Lukaku dummy. And the tactical view from that was just beautiful. And, you know, probably another one of the reasons why I'm here today. And yeah, so to get one of these for my own team, scoring a huge goal, absolutely momentous occasion, just the biggest, one of the biggest events of my life so far.

and yeah the view is tremendous and also have to ask why do we not get tactical views on wise cowl. Yeah and for me I just am having trouble getting over the ingeniousness of the dead sprint Pulosa took straight into a wall. Yeah, yeah. You just don't see anything like that for a reason.

He's just kind of a lunatic stuff too. It's like genius and then fall out. total like intelligence to start it and then yeah crazy to just run right into the keeper and now he's in the pantheon so all the pressure is off him he's just going to go out there and play for now on yep if he's able to play you know you know Greg Greg you talked about this a little bit in our recap actually in the call-in show too but um it didn't really hit me until last night on my nine 97th watch of the of the video like it's this is legendary like in the Modest pantheon of men's soccer in America, admittedly modest.

These guys are legends who put this goal together. Yep. And it was a, and I'm never going to leave it alone. Western McKinney dropping in. A dime. Playing a little deep line playmaker role and doing things a lot of people said he couldn't do. So yeah. And you know, like he'd gotten that.

of got had this rep right of not being the playmaker um and just like we could say this goal in the build up to it echoed 2019 like weston mckenny was doing some of those things in 2019 because in those early days uh his role often was to sit beside michael bradley and they were both kind of hitting the same ball so weston had a bunch of those diagonals uh on his resume already for the us national team so we we knew he could hit those and we knew he had sort of the the chops to uh you know occasionally do some cute final third stuff. I'm really glad that he has been showing out in this tournament. Yep.

We had, it was almost really resembled to me. Costa Rica at home when we had him packed in. Had Serge all the way up, had Eunice on the touchline behind him, ready to, you know, defend the case we turned it over. And Weston just spraying side to side, trying to find a way to pick the lock. really didn't do like, you know, as good a job as we did against Iran. And was, and I think a scuffed ball turned into the, the Tim Wea goal. I'm claiming that as Tim Weir's goal.

But, uh, right. Yeah, you know, it's just, you know, when you got a young team and Greg, you've coached, Bell's you've coached. And, you know, you get these experiences that you then, that you then parlay into greater performances and just to see it all happen is, uh, it's rewarding. It sure is. I feel like my feeling going into the World Cup is Brawter is going to be more pragmatic. We're going to rise to the occasion.

I mean, this was the optimistic case. We're going to rise to the occasion. And the pragmatism with Braalter is like he's going to be more pragmatic about his selections, basically. And then we're going to rise to the occasion, and we're going to coalesce in a way that we haven't up to now. And I feel like that's kind of exactly what's happened. Isn't it? Basically.

I mean, but at the same time, he hasn't been fully consumed by the pragmatism in that, you know, he could have easily put a set piece team out there and try to get a goal against Iran that way. But, you know, he said, I believe in these guys. I believe in their talent and their ability and their quality. And we're going to go out there and we're going to break this low block down. A thing that, you know, has caused as much. anxiety, the U.S.'s ability to do that.

Yeah. And Greg's like undying faith in these guys is a big reason why I've been behind Greg. Like I can't say I've been behind him for, you know. I mean, I mean, really it's only been like six months. But like since the June window. It's longer than most. Since the June window, I've been on Greg, on Greg side. And yeah, man, it's because he, because he believes in him.

He believes in him. And so, you know, just like old dude said, last chance you, hey, I'm rocking with Mark because Mark is rocking with us. And it's as simple as that. And he's, Berlter is one win away from erasing 30% of USMNT Twitter, maybe 60%. Like they'll just be gone. What's going to happen to them? Yeah, he's going to erase Bruce Arena too. You know, they're just going to show up.

The ribs are just going to show up to a game to start the season, and he's just not going to be on the touchline. I played a bunch of calls on the broadcast from other countries of the goal, but I have one more that I ran across. This is the Italian call. Let me do it real quick. Serginio Desta, good al-Apertura for Adams. Extended cut.

He's a pair of companions. He brought a spasel the ballon. And let's all the players of Iran compact. McKenny, Dillazia, he has marked again, Sergino-Dest, the ballon, at destination,

the cross for Pulisic. States Unit in vantage, 1-0, grand jocata, the assist of Serginio Dest, then Pulisik, that rest, a terror-dolourant,

but has brought in advantage, the States Unite. And let me just real quickly play the reaction at Brick Street, which is a bar

in Oxford, Ohio, I think pretty clearly the best watch party in America on Tuesday. Brick Street. The powerful watchbook. Thank you. You're flying everywhere. Thank you, Brick Street.

That's the University of Miami, Ohio. Yeah, so I went to Miami, Ohio for a weekend. I had a friend that played football there. I went up to visit him. And, hey, that was a top-tier weekend. I'll just leave it at that top-tier weekend, for sure. If you could see the video of the audio that I just played, it looks like top tier weekends are had in that place.

That's a Tuesday. It's a Tuesday at 3 p.m. Yeah. There is, I hate to do this, but there is one sour note here. FIFA took down the great high angle tactical video. Yeah. And I think it's kind of an outrage that belongs to the American people. I don't know what we do about it, but I think we need to get that back.

FIFA took down Sam out of Kubay's mom. celebrating that he was that he had came into a World Cup match and so yeah I mean if you're if you're doing that and and you know the main thing was in the video it was the mom celebrating with with the game on a TV in the background and FIFA still was like yeah we got to get this out of here um so yeah yeah what do we get the unfortunate all 22 video now do we have to go to like the library of Congress who has who has it I ripped it and I put it on the Patreon oh thank goodness You could do, you could take all these calls in different languages to just string that goal together about 20 times.

And I'd watch that over and over again. Yeah, maybe I will. Maybe I should do that. Get that Ohio one on there too. Ohio belongs. Yeah. Ohio belongs now. I guess Ohio, you know, not so bad after all.

Let's see. Have you guys noticed? Oh, go ahead. So are you saying the presence of Brick Street is the exact reason? reason why we've been in uh we've had so many games in ohio i'm not saying that i'm just saying hey some people in ohio like soccer after all that's all i'm saying okay i mean it was mostly white people in the video if we want to you know if we want to be honest um by the way have you guys notice how many people are trying to ruin our joy they they don't like to they don't like to see you

win you know what i'm saying they don't like to see us win and and that's why i've been making sure that I step on the grave of all of our enemies. Mexico, Canada, Tieri, Henri. Yeah. Hey. But it's like Mexico and Canada, you know, they don't have, like, I can barely even spare the energy to think of those places right now. I got plenty. You do.

It's like people here saying, you know, like saying U.S. fans are all dorks, which, hey, know, there's some truth. of that, but why? So I'm talking about sour people of all stripes, you know, that kind of person, people who say they love soccer and tactics, kind of ignoring the fact that Burrhalter is coaching a really good tournament right now. I mean, I know, you know, on our podcast, you've heard a lot of the nuance on that. But overall, the way the team comes out and sets up in these games is like Burrhalter is winning praise in a lot of places.

He's winning praise globally, globally. And MMA is winning praise globally. Right, right. And I'm not saying there's no room for criticism on either count, like the dorkiness of the fan base or the, you know, Burholters' decisions. We certainly have criticized his decisions a lot on this podcast. But it seems like there's an awful lot of people who just want to suck the joy out of this. and I got to say, the sorrow merchants have failed.

Just total collapse. I think the joy is too intense, you know? You can knit that around the edges, but in the end, it's just too much joy. Yeah. I just, yeah, I just want to say that. It's like you are not ruining my joy. I think it's the whole, it's the whole proxy war bit, right?

Like at some point people would have had to felt like they had to dig in on one side or the other of a proxy war, or the people were at least who are taking part in it. Right. who've chosen those sides. And then it's just like, once you have done that, you'd much rather win your version of the proxy war than have your favorite team do well in the biggest tournament.

That is the whole reason that you follow the team. Right. You know, we will definitely keep criticizing Berhalder. I mean, it's the same way that we'll spend three minutes talking about why Timway I made a suboptimal choice when Timway is our favorite player of all time. I'm just going to say hour. And I don't even just mean the people here on this recording. I mean, everywhere in the country, too much our favorite player.

But we'll still spend two minutes being like, oh, this is why he screwed up here. Like the staff and the players both, I want all of them to perform as well as they possibly can. I want them to make the best possible choices that they can. And when they make an incorrect choice, whether it's a player or the staff, I want it to not be so incorrect and so costly that it eliminates us from the World Cup tournament. Yeah, and I guess I will say the TLDR here is, you know, we can call ourselves some dorks. Yeah.

Well, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that I am. I'm still watching, I'm still watching Dwayne Holmes' championship games. Like, while the World Cup's going on, I don't think I would say that I'm a dork. The thing is, you know, well, so what's that law of thermodynamics? Energy cannot be created or disposed of? Yeah. Energy is way above my head.

Created nor destroyed. Right. Created nor destroyed. So it's like, yo, if you built your, if your platform involved Hayden the U.S. to start off and you see us doing good, that energy has to go somewhere. The energy has to go somewhere. So it might result in you lashing out. But, you know, I'm just going to point at you laugh and keep it moving, baby, because we got a game on Saturday to take care of. Let's get it.

That's a great bookend. All right, MMA, let's keep talking about them. I saw an article in the athletic where they were talking about how McKinney was orchestrating a lot of, lot of that disruptive exchanging movement on the left flank, just more, just more evidence of him, you know, having that maestro gene. And that's just, that's only one part of it. My, Tyler Adams, there's a, there's a feature on him in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Gary Lineker talking about him, Garrett Southgate, I mean, who, the Spanish language praise for Tyler Adams across the internet is voluminous at the moment.

Yeah. And I listen to a podcast. today where somebody threw out the take that they think Eunice Musa better than Jude. Better than Jude. All right. All right.

I mean, why not, right? I mean, I'm not saying that that's definitely conclusively the case. But so one of those things where it's like, why not? Maybe he is. Yeah. And this is an English-based pod

and this is an English man that said it. So, hey, I'm throwing that out there, man. We've really, MMA was as good as we thought it was, basically. Yeah. And that's been amazing to see.

Is there, looking ahead to the other ones, is there anything we can do to prevent them from being as tired at the last part of the game as they were? Because that's the only really, I wouldn't even say concern, but thought I'm having. Is there a thing we can do or is that kind of what it is? We're going to be really tired at the end now. I think we're going to be really tired regardless.

Is there any silver lining that we were going so flat out in that first half? We were just way more tired that we're going to. be against another ones and we can conserve a little bit better and maybe it won't happen as early? I don't know. We'll have to see. Like maybe Eunice getting this exposure is kind of

teaching them a little bit better how to conserve energy and when and where to conserve energy. Maybe. You know, the fact that he even made it last game is an improvement for sure. And it's unfortunate that Weston just isn't 100% because he would just go 90% because he would just go 90 regardless.

We know how he is. Like, I mean, we could have nine men on the field and Weston would go 120 easily. Oh, 120. But, yeah, I mean, we'll have to see. We'll have to see. Hopefully, Weston's in the hyperbaric. Hopefully we can get his thigh right, man.

But, yeah, it would be unfortunate if all this comes down to the fact that, you know, we just can't keep it. We can't keep it going for a full 90. I think there's a reason to think we can absolutely stretch it out more. We did it against England because we didn't have to chase a goal, right? So since we weren't chasing a goal against England, we could stay in our 4-4-2. We conceded a lot of possession to them, but like that's fine.

And then, you know, our best 11 players also have to be our best 11 players at like keeping a solid spine and being good defensively. So it's not even like we can keep them on the field, start them, play them for 60. see where we stand after 60 minutes, hopefully. And if we still have some air in our tires, like either go for the goal or just keep maintaining the status quo all the way through till we absolutely need to push to chase a goal. Because I think the first sub in the England game came in like almost the 80th minute, right? Like Aronson didn't come on until 75th minute.

So because of the lower intensity of the game, less back and forth, we can get extra minutes from our guys. We couldn't do it against Iran because we had to. I mean, we had to push for it. Right. But if we can contain the Netherlands for 60, turn it into a 30-minute game? Well, the thing is, the Netherlands does look or has looked a little bit susceptible to the press so far in these three games. Is that fair to say?

Yes. They've been a little messy at the back. So I guess we'll just have to be really strategic about, you know, sitting in our 4-4-2 occasionally pressing, but not. not pressing consistently. We'll want to tap into that revenue stream if we can. Yep. So it's a shame that we haven't been able to really pull it out. Our PPDAs have been pretty hot in this tournament.

Wait, what are PDAs? Pass per defensive action. Oh, okay. And usually when you're pressing aggressively, that number is around like seven or eight. and more recently it's been well in the World Cup specifically it's been like 12 13 14 15 in that area that means that means we're allowing our opponent to string together a lot of passes before we end up intervening right right vince yes yes before it the defensive action i think of like a block

interception foul blah blah blah well we will talk more about the netherlands here in just a second but first let's do some injury news uh walkie what's the latest on pulisic and sergeant Well, Pulisic is still the same pelvic contusion day-to-day, sergeant, right- ankle soreness day-to-day. As we know, none of these things really mean anything right now, but I think we should analyze them anyway. Let me play a quote from Pulisic's press conference this morning, which I think will give us some encouragement.

It's about that Landon goal against Algeria, and now you had your moment, your first big moment. That's Mikele Janone, great friend of the pod. It feels great to score in a World Cup. Timmy knows what that's like. I think I'm hoping I haven't had that moment yet, to be honest. I'm hoping it's in front of me. So it feels great to be where we're at right now, but there's still more to come.

I love it. Me too. We need it, man. Yeah, and in terms of injuries, he'd go on to not quite clarify whether he got hit in the balls or not. He claims he didn't. It seems like people don't believe him on that, but I kind of do. I think he didn't. Well, it's definitely in our best interest not to let the Netherlands know if he got

hitting the balls or if he just got hit in the lower end of the pelvic wall. Right. It's all games on ship. So he's obviously going to be a little awkward talking about it. Yeah, fair enough. But I don't know if he would be that dizzy, you know, unable to stand and walk without the, what it says without, without that impact to that particular area. there. I had questions about whether he was gaspy enough, but you know, we may never know. And I think

they're taking the right approach here. Fair. Yeah. I have to say that picture of Serge jumping, but like the picture behind the goal where Pooley is lifeless in the goal mouth, Serge jumping and Sarge, like waiting for Christian to get up with a smile on his face. Yeah. All while, all while Christian Polisic is resting in peace. They do need to find a way to create a chance to celebrate. Yeah. Because the one disappointing thing about it, I think, you know, we had some ideas. Maybe they could kind of just celebrate a lesser play intensely at some point during earlier than the Jones game.

But I actually think it needs to be a goal. So he gets to go. A goal is what we need. Surge did a big, like, jump uppercut punch. Did you see that? Did you notice that? Yeah. He jumps.

Yeah. He jumps high. And he uppercuts the air in front of him and lands right by Pulisic. But it's not just that we didn't get to see them celebrate a lot. We didn't get to see, because the camera was kind of focused on Pulisic more than you would usually be on a stationary body. There isn't really like footage of great footage of like the bench reaction and stuff, at least on the broadcast. Yeah. And you see that picture of Wes.

where he has a release after the goal is scored. And I don't think I've seen a camera angle where he can see that either. Because apparently him and Tyler hugged, he also ran over to the bench. So all that stuff, yeah. Well, the tactical cam, you can see Wes runs in the direction of the bench. But it could be he's just going to midfield to celebrate in the middle of the field. And Tyler turns and runs right at Wes. maybe they were headed for Burrhalter

maybe they were just like yeah we did it you know do you guys do you guys think that maybe these fellows actually can't join into the pantheon until we get better video footage of a different celebration is this going to delay their entry in because we don't have that one celebration you know we don't have the dog pile in in South Africa to seize around

maybe but but that also harkens back to a to a time where we didn't expect to actually do anything because we didn't have no ballers. We don't have that Tony Mola shot after the goal against Columbia. The Tony Miola sign of the cross. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wasn't the sign of the cross after.

Miss penalty. Yeah. Or the Miss bicycle. Yeah. There's no question we're short on iconic celebration shots. And that's, I'm not going to say it's a problem, but it's something to think about. It's a shame. It's a shame.

It's a shame. next games. We'll get it on Saturday in about the 27th minute. Not a second sooner. Also, I just want to say, just happy, real happy for search. Real happy for search. There's been a lot going on, you know, these past, it's past a year and a half or whatever.

And for him to come up and show up in this World Cup and be performing pretty well, I think I said this on the preview. But, you know, we needed a moment of quality from surge to, you know, to get us a moment, to get us a goal, because he's relied on heavily in the attack, and he did it, he did it. Heather was perfect. It's a perfect header.

I think pretty underrated, all things considered. And he's not a big header guy. He rose the occasion, though. It's his kind of header, though. So with his jumping, uppercut fist punch, was he, I'm curious, was he smiling? Because I feel like he doesn't change his facial expression ever. Do we have a smile?

It wasn't a smile. It wasn't a smile. It was just like, you know, a yeah. He was saying, yeah. He was imagining giving that uppercut to Javi. Exactly. So there was no smiling. He was smiling in the shot coming back to the hotel with his shades on.

He kind of led the way. He's looking sharp. He was happy there. He was looking good. he was looking good and he was doing the diplomatic you know

like hand wave like I can't like I can't receive too much of this praise yeah as you see like like a pop star do or something I just love yeah he's doing it in his

Sergenio desk why and now it's just like all coming together for him the BBC commentators were like you wonder why he's out on loan because they were so impressed with him why'd they send him out on loan yeah

because Javi's a rat That's why Mr. BBC man Well McKinney gave his shirt to a kid named Luca Lizardo Because he made a sign Asking for his shirt at the game And then took a photo with him And there's kind of shades of McKinney Getting a photo with Bokanegrin and Donovan

When he was a kid Yeah I mean You know who knows how he'll pan out obviously But you've got to set up moments like this Just in case it does so you can you have that story You know 10 years in the future They're playing together Here's this happened

beautiful it is a beautiful story well written too it sounds like Luke is a pretty good player too well I got two things number one the like the amount of money I feel like you have to have to bring your kid to Qatar to a World Cup that's true incredible incredible shout to the Lazzardo family must be

doing good for themselves and number two This just came to me, but my brother has a similar situation where he, we took him to meet. I don't know if y'all know who Michael Bush is. He played at Louisville, was a running back, played in the NFL for like 10 seasons, mostly with the Oakland Raiders and the Bears too. But so Reg went to meet him when he was like three years old, got the pick with him. and then, you know, when my brother was at Louisville playing running back, that thing, like, resurfaced. And, yeah, it's cool to see, man.

It is cool. Dreams coming true. Airborne 69 taking picks with everybody. Got on the, what do you call those robes? Is that a tobe? For anyone who doesn't know Airborne 69 is Weston McKinney's dad is probably the most important person to follow on Twitter. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Just with the USA-inspired Middle Eastern garb that I didn't know existed and seems just, it's the funniest juxtaposition ever. But you would expect nothing less. He had a photo with a middle-aged German lady in a, you know, sort of what do you call those? In the Liederhausen. Is that what you call it? I don't really know. Yeah, I just threw that out. I don't know.

She looks like, you know, sort of like like she's at going to October Fest, I guess. It's the best way I can say it. It's a nice photo. One thing in that in that story that Katie gave the jersey to specifically called out liking the red, white, and blue in his hair. I think that could turn out to be a big thing. Oh, it's already big.

My daughter is, she likes Weston now. She likes Weston now because of his hair specifically. I wasn't at home I was at the bar watching the match but my wife texted me and was like Eden Loz Weston she wants her to be like that Nice

I thought one of the great things about Andrew Webe's monologue after the England game was how he talked about how iconic it would have been for West to put that goal in the ball in the back of the net against England

like I don't want to get greedy things are I'm everything's great I'm feeling great but the end I don't know. I've thought about it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, the idea of him with the red, white and blue hair after scoring on England on Black Friday, would have been something else, man. It would have been crazy. And every time I watch that goal, like Weston seems closer to the goal to me.

Like at first, when I first saw it, it was like, oh, you know, he's kind of out. He's kind of out there. It was, you know, it would have been a difficult finish. And I keep watching. I'm like, bro, he... you inside the 6 yard box. Not quite, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, he's not. But this is what it feels like. But yeah, man.

And if we could have got the Tim Wea go on a Western McKinney through ball, oh, yeah, y'all would have never been able to shut me up. Yeah. Oh, man. Everybody, everybody in the world was sad that that was called back for offside. I mean. Yeah, that's like one of the main talking points. I've seen with people, like, especially casuals.

Everyone is just like, man, that was such a goal. How was that offside and just... Did you see the Fox News graphic? I think they were talking about that goal and said, why do refs make it so hard to score? Yeah. I did see that. I don't know what they were talking about,

but that's a nice graphic. Well, the offside, I saw an offside graphic from today, Belgium versus Croatia, that looked even more frustrating. But anyway, people start talking about the offside rule and I slowly drift away. Here's my take on it. No, I'm not going to get on the offside rule. I think I have already. Yeah, no.

Greg, you are more than what. I would love to hear you talk about it. It's the same thing. To overturn an onside call on the field, there's got to be daylight. But it's just to overturn a call that was already that the AR called Onside. If you're going to overturn that, there's got to be daylight to overturn it. So leave it mostly in the AR's hands. Yeah, because that'll keep that.

You've got to keep the attackers honest. Otherwise, the attackers are going to cheat way more than you want them to or the game might become unrecognizable from what we're used to. Right. Okay, let's talk about the Netherlands. I have some stuff I want to say, but Greg, why don't you start us off? I'm going to give you the on-brand answer and say that they're ghost. stats are shit.

Yeah, not that great. I don't care about the Qatar game because that one was almost like, it wasn't totally meaningless. I think neither ones had to win to make sure that they won the group. But it was, you know, Qatar's been bad. So let me just jump in real quick and say, my cousin Aaron really wants me to say this. He wanted me to say, while my Qatar gently weeps. So I'm doing it.

All right. Thank you. Please continue. But no, just throwing this out there that part of the reason I think the Netherlands stats are so bad is because their overperformance is so good. And we saw this again with Canada in qualifying because over like a smaller sample, you get this game state overweighing things. So when the Netherlands score on their first shot of the game against Ecuador, then there's that probably at least factors into why they only attempted one other shot. the game against Ecuador. It's not the only reason. I mean, I'm sure they would have liked to have taken more shots. But it does. I do think that the game state matters there. So, but they only,

they only created two shots against Ecuador. So they didn't, it's not like they were, you know, just constantly carving teams up. And this is where I'm hoping that our 442 block can keep them contained and conserve our energy while not just being like repeatedly smashed for 55 or 60 minutes. Yeah, they don't look, they do attack, it seems like, in a lot of different ways, and they play balls over the top, and Van Dyke plays balls from deep. But none of their goals has really been champagne football or anything close to it, not even the ones against guitar.

I mean, Gakbo and Memphis are dangerous, of course. Klassen, who I thought I was sure was washed the last time I saw him play, is surprisingly effective, I think, in there. And of course, Frankie Diyang is a good player. But yeah, I don't think, we're not facing an attacking juggernaut here, I don't think.

Yeah, definitely not. And I do think that that 4-4-2 will match up well. As you know, Netherlands with a, what you call it, a 343, essentially? Somebody, anybody? Yeah, no, that's what I'd put it as. Okay.

But, yeah, so, you know, got those two in the midfield. and the wingbacks, dump freeze and Daily Blend. And so, yeah, with those two lines of four, hopefully the first line of four is able to get out to the wingbacks

more often than than Christian Pulisic and specifically was able to get out to whoever was holding the width on the touchline against England, so Jedi doesn't have to come out there. But if we do that, I mean, you know, it's going to be tough to break Because down.

Yeah. I mean, something crazy could happen. We could go down early and it could all go to, you know, hell in a handbasket. It's totally possible. But this is not a dominant team that we're facing. I think against Senegal, it was, they got a pretty wild Gakpo header on a clipped ball from Diyang. Then Memphis hit. They got their second goal in the 98th minute.

Memphis hit a fairly harmless shot right at the death and the keeper palmed it straight to Davy Klausen for the finish against Ecuador they got like like Greg said two shots and according to Y Scout which I know isn't the most reliable but it's probably in the ballpark 0.04 XG on the game so four one hundredths four one hundredths of a goal and it was just Gakbo just pounced on a lucky bounce there was kind of a scramble and hit a great shot.

That was it. He smashed it. It was a ridiculous shot. It was very good. Lightning bolt. So the thing that I'm like giving myself some solace here is that when the Netherlands did take the lead against Ecuador, they also didn't totally shut Ecuador down. So Ecuador created enough chances where you'd be like, okay, well, I mean, they got their goal, right?

So it's not like the Netherlands are some airtight defense either. Right. Yeah, I mean, without a doubt. I mean, it's like they're playing with a midfield of two, right? And it's like, it's not like Frankie Diyong is the strongest defender. And one thing that's been remarked about a lot with Virgil Van Dyke as he's getting older is his unwillingness to engage with the attackers. And there's one podcast I listen to it. They call him Van Delegate.

Like a lot of times you see Liverpool getting scored on you know he's sitting there pressing I mean not pressing pointing at somebody to go to go get whoever it is with the ball and yeah so if we can

if we can get in front of that in front of that that back three whether it's on a turnover or just building through play I think we'll be able to play through that midfield quite easily and yeah there's just going to be like a big hole

in front of those two lines because that midfield isn't much of a line in front of the D. I wonder if Van Halwer will adjust to deal with our midfield in some way. Like going with the two-man midfield against us seems like a bad idea. Well, I mean, if you do it against Senegal and Ecuador,

I mean, they both have pretty solid, especially Senegal, pretty solid you know athletically and technically so okay

let me play a question from a listener hey this is Robert from Nashville now that we're on to the round of 16 I'm thinking about Greg Burhalter

describing the World Cup is two different tournaments and does that mean anything tactically now that we're in the knockout stages did Burrhalter just think

and apparently be correct that we could get through the group stage without Gio Raina, so no need to play him, really. But does the idea of two different tournaments now mean anything tactically for the team moving forward? Greg? I mean, I guess you could just separate it as, you know, the, you think of the group stage is sort of one long game where you're trying to accumulate enough points to advance and you

can get them in a variety of ways. So as we saw, he chose, like, not to pursue the win against England. as hard as maybe we could have, but because you're, you know, you're managing the group. And now those considerations go out the window, right? There's no, you're not conserving anybody for the next game. Like against England,

it's possible that, you know, he held on to Raina longer than he might have, if he were truly chasing a goal to save him for the next game. And I do think those considerations are, are no longer, you know, anywhere in effect. It is very much this one game we have to win. We have to do whatever it takes to get the result in this, in this game to advance.

and stay alive. So I think maybe it goes that way. There are no future considerations to weigh. You don't save anybody on yellow cards or anything like that. You run your best group until you can't run them anymore. And then you're figuring it out on the fly. Yeah. Maybe there is a secret improvement happening in Giorana's health right now.

But either way, the way our group stage shook out, it kind of ended up being like that anyway. You know, like, uh, we, we, we sort of started our knockout round one game early. So we,

we, we already just went through that game against Iran where there was no, there were no other considerations. So I think, I think we kind of know what to expect here. And as far as geo goes, uh, yeah,

just, I don't, I don't know if they trust him to be able to play at the, at the, like, with the fitness level required. He didn't really open the throttle against England when he did get in. Uh,

he had a couple, he had like, one leverage moment where you're like, oh, there's Gio's leverage where he just kind of... Skipped by a guy. Judo's a guy to put him on his back, even though the guy started out goalside. So I don't know. I'm not sure what their confidence level is with him or what they think he can actually do minutes-wise, fitness-wise. Or, you know, what I still think is not the case, that he's perfectly 100% healthy,

and they just don't think he's good enough at soccer. Waki, you do a lot of Zeprooting of film. What's your take on the whole Gio Raina was mad after the win over Iran take? I think he's frustrated that he's injured. And he, you know, just dealing with the complex of emotions of being in a World Cup and not getting him to play as much as he wants. I was just upset. And he's very young. Exactly.

So he put his headphones on and walked through the lobby. Also, he just kind of like that, you know? I wouldn't want to be like dancing around and celebrating if I didn't play. It would just feel like unearned valor. Also, he doesn't know it's going to be on all over the internet. You just walk into his hotel. Yeah. Maybe you can guess, but.

So, I mean, really, it's the, it's the most logical outcome. You know, like, we know and everything we know about geo. It didn't surprise me whatsoever. He's a kid He's a kid Let's do One last thing Kind of deal with

Holland versus the Netherlands Thing Waki Can you help us Sort of understand Yeah Just that they have two What's going on

There's a good YouTube video About it That explains it pretty clearly I would recommend everyone Basically They've just changed their names A bunch First of all

The Netherlands is made Of 12 provinces Two of them are called Holland Which is very confusing North Holland and South Holland, right? North Holland, South Holland. Those are called Hollanders, but then the rest of the people are called Dutch. And then you have the Germans next door who also say Deutsch.

The whole thing's very confusing. It's kind of a mess, and I think it's kind of just a little bit unsurious of them. And I think we just need to go out and take care of business. Yeah. I guess my takeaway from all that is if somebody, are people offended when you call them Holland? Is that the issue? Like you shouldn't call them, call the country Holland? I don't, my impression is they don't, they're not too worried about it.

Yeah, but I've never been to. All right. So that's settled. It's, uh, you could call it the Holland or the Netherlands probably and nobody will care. You're at least won't be, you won't be challenged at a press conference or anything. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Vince? Yeah, I don't know what it is about the country specifically, but they, they, it just seems to be one of the weirder, uh, well, so one of the weirder Western European countries.

maybe the weirdest. I don't know. There's just a lot going on with the other lens. Yeah, they got tulips, windmills. It seems like a bit much to me. They legalized marijuana before just about everybody. Yep. So.

Which adds to the weirdness. They just seem to be a different type of people. Yeah. They're like a postcard country, right? Like they built their whole identity around what would look good on a postcard. Yes. And those postcard sites, those are all located in the Holland precincts. Okay.

Provinces. So that's just... I would have guessed. I would have guessed that. Yeah. So the southern Dutch provinces are just kind of discount rate, Belgium. The eastern ones are discount rate, Germany. Kind of.

Is that what I'm hearing? Basically, I mean, I watched a four-minute YouTube video, but that's my impression as well. Okay. Well, guys, big game on Saturday. Let's do it. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.