Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #360: USMNT v Serbia recap, plus Earnie Stewart out

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Greg and Belz recap the 2-1 loss to the Serbs, and discuss Earnie Stewart's exit from US Soccer.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes (more than 50 last year and already 5 this month in 2023), plus access to the Discord including live call-in shows, 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. The U.S. lost 2-1 to Serbia last night in Los Angeles, but first some news. Greg, did you hear the news? Yes, we definitely heard the news. We spent a couple hours trying to figure out if the news is worth spending several hours on, but of course we're going to do that. Yeah, Ernie's out. So is Brian McBride, which had been reported earlier, but Ernie Stewart.

going to PSV Einhoven and everyone at U.S. soccer, and by everyone at U.S. soccer, I mean Cindy Parlo Cohn, the president and J.T. Batson, the CEO, you know, just saying, hey, this is great for him. He's a great guy. You're a great guy. You're a great guy. Everyone's a great guy.

Let's go. And it's going to... He's going to be a great guy across the ocean now. Yep. Yeah. McBride apparently won it out even before the World Cup, but they asked him to stay on a little bit longer. You know, these were some of the gleanings from a fairly tepid press conference this morning.

The end of summer was talked about as a timeline for a new sporting director and men's national team coach decision, but it was pretty squishy on the timeline stuff. Not even 100% clear if Brian McBride will be replaced. And Greg Berhalter is officially still a candidate for the job that he had. had a couple months ago, although that seems increasingly unlikely. Yeah, I'm going to say totally unlikely. I mean, Paulo Cohn and Batson have sort of cleaned house, and it just seems super,

super unlikely that they're going to do all this house cleaning just to retain the guy that the people who they just cleaned out of the house brought on. Yeah. But see, they deny there being any clean house cleaning element to this. You know, that's the thing. It's like they don't, they won't even, you know, They up and down swear that that is not what's going on. Which is what a good house cleaning tries to say.

I mean, I'm not saying it definitely is, but I'm just saying no one should ever be taken at face value in these things because no matter what the face value is, there is a script to follow when you discuss it. And everyone participating here is definitely on that script. Yep. Yeah. And it's to everyone's benefit for it to appear as amicable and mutual as possible. no update on Geogate.

The investigation is ongoing, and we didn't get any detail on that. Do we want to, before we get into the friendly against Serbia, which I'm sure we will discuss in detail, do you want to talk about what the timeline ramifications are as far as hiring a new coach? Do you feel strongly one way or the other about what this means for the timeline? I mean, I don't have super strong feelings, but I want you to go first. I also don't have super strong feelings about it. I think that, you know, the March window is, is, can, I'm fine with that being a total wash. I don't think we really lose anything.

Whether that's, you know, if we, if we had a, if we had our person, our candidate and we, and we were able to like nail it and get them on board for the March window, that would be the best, right? It would be best to do that. They could have like a meet and greet with the players, kind of go through a very low stakes window together, but it's, we're so far from the World Cup. We're so far from like what, when things actually need to be humming, that it, it just, it's, it's such diminishing returns timeline-wise. So I'm totally fine missing the March window. I think the, the summer we do start to get into like some opportunity cost if we don't have a full-time, our full-time manager installed

at that point. But even then, it's, it's not huge because we know who our top 12 players are. I don't think that will change regardless of who the coach is. So it's going to be about like when they do come in, just trying to get those 12 players working together and then filling out at the edges. Yeah. It does. It is such a long time.

And I mean, from Cindy Parlo Cohn and J.T. Batson's perspective, you know, the women's World Cup is a much more pressing and important priority at the moment. Makes you wonder why they haven't put more pressure on Vlako to up his game a little bit. But that's not their job, right? That's Markgrass job.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. And it seems as though Mark Raff, I mean, she's affected here because she just lost her boss, right? So is she now doing boss's job or does her job stay the same in the interim during this during this? Yeah, I don't know. Or does she, does her position get eliminated if Brian McBride's does since it's sort of a, you know, symmetrical thing? I don't know. Yeah, so in some sense it's kind of boring stuff. but I guess as a fan, I just would rather things be, have there be a feeling of decisiveness

from the Federation on this kind of stuff. And I know you've got to take time and you want to make the right decisions and stuff, but I don't know, Anthony Hudson coaching for the next six months. Not a super appealing prospect. He gave his, what was it? His halftime interview on HBO last night

and it was like, it was like if, if, uh, you fed AI, like give me an English soccer coach talking on camera. I, I'm not saying, you know,

maybe he's, he might even be doing a good job, but just like the way he presented in that interview was, yeah, we tried to get some crosses in, you know, when there was full backs to get forward, yada,

yada, I don't know. It's not, it's not going to be super fun if he's coaching the gold cup and Nations League. Even if, and I,

And I know you're saying like that's when you start to see some opportunity cost there in the summer. But even if you, even if you would argue the opportunity cost is small and it doesn't really matter that much, which I know you're not arguing. Even then, it's not going to be fun as a fan for him to be the coach. It won't be fun if there are just some very obvious like, I don't know, you'd call him Hudsonisms. But, but like there was nothing in the game yesterday. You're just like, oh, man. And this is, you know, what, 10, 10 players getting like their second or. lower cap in the starting 11.

Yeah, there were 50 caps on the team, I think, and 47 of them were Walker Zimmerman. Call on Acosta. So out of the 11, you're talking about? Out of the 11, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, all he has to do is not drive the whole Hudson, Hudson just can't drive the entire thing into the ground in one March window and then through the summer.

Like, that's his only job is to not somehow burn bridges with our best players. And there's just, that just isn't going to happen, you know, right? He's not going to be able to do that. So, yeah. So then it's just like, even though Hudson's not our favorite interim manager we've ever had, you know, Grandpa Dave forever. Who, to be fair, it was, it was kind of annoying to have him as the interim manager at the time, you know, in retrospect, we're a little kinder to him.

Well, and it certainly was by month seven or eight of him being the interim manager, right? So, and he had a lot of, I mean, he had a lot of windows. He was playing games constantly. So if Hudson is just a guy for March in the summer, like Hudson isn't our favorite person to have found themselves in this position, but also like the marginal difference again between Hudson being the interim coach or anyone else being the interim coach just doesn't really seem that much to me. So it's a it's just a matter of yes,

we want to get the right coach installed full time as soon as we can. But there are probably real reasons that that search might go better if we take a little bit of time for it and not try to be like, we need this person in by March. Right. Yeah. Okay. So I'm starting to, you know, I've, I've done a turn this morning and my new position is I want Jose Marino to be the coach. I do. It'd be so fun. It'd be the for the, for the content and the sort of, um, uh, the profile of the of the national team. I know he's, you know, maybe he wouldn't do a very good job, but it would be a lot of fun. And he, and he, uh, and he, uh, He could, you know, when you get to a tournament, he seems like his way of coaching probably works pretty well in a tournament. They just won the European Conference, right? Yeah.

There you go. So I would totally, and the thing is I would consider a trade for results versus drama. Like what I don't want is bad results and boring team. What I would totally take is mediocre results and tons and tons of drama. Yeah. Just mess. just the messiest everything. Yeah, have him come in there and just, you know, blow some things up because he will not,

you know, he won't be taking, he won't be taking any guff from Michael Cameron, I'll tell you that much. So that is the other thing about this like, again, non-house cleaning, house cleaning. With Ernie Stewart out, like when Ernie Stewart is in, I think there is a very specific type of coach that we would have ended up with. Like we were talking in the Discord about, you know, the coaches. Yeah. Hiring a coach at times is also similar to the hat situation.

where you just put a bunch of names in a hat. You do your best. You hire a search firm to give you some plausible deniability on the due diligence front. And then you still end up pulling a name out of a hat. And the thing is, though, there are definitely different styles of hat that you can, you know, pull from. And with Ernie Stewart, I think there was definitely going to be like a style of coach that he would have gravitated towards. And with him out, all of the different hat styles are in play, I think.

Yeah. I don't know that Marino would have been. an Ernie Stewart-style hat despite the rumors of him being contacted by U.S. soccer. It would have been a Dutch and Dutch-adjacent hat, probably. That's my guess. Do we know what those hats are? It's like the tall black ones with the buckle on the front.

Oh, yeah, it definitely would have had a buckle on it. Yeah, now who knows? Now it could be a feather. Yeah. Could be a Stets. There's a lot of good men. It could be a magic hat. Roma is sitting fifth in the table in Syria,

out right now in case you're wondering, 13 points back of Napoli. So, you know, we'll see. How about some lineups for this match last night? Yeah, we played a soccer game yesterday. It was fun. It was fun. I thought it was fun. Of course it was fun.

We're so deep into this stuff that anytime we have out American players wearing the American uniform on a soccer field with referees and an opponent, it's going to be like, yes, give us this, please. Yeah, it was kind of a relaxing, you know, late night on the East Coast for me, 10 o'clock Eastern time. Let's see, Gagas Lanina gets the starting goal. Pretty exciting. Julian Gressel, newly minted American citizen at right back, Walker Zimmerman,

and Jalen Neal at centerback, Jalen Neal, who does not have an MLS minute to his name, but has been really good for the U-20s. And then Jonathan Gomez at Leftback. That's kind of cool. He's over in the Real Associateds system. not playing first team football, but still has a lot of potential, still pretty young. Alan Sonora got to see that left-footed midfielder ahead of Aidan Morris and Paxton Palmacall in the middle. And then Alejandro Sendejas, I've gotten, you know, I'm sort of in my head about how to pronounce this guy's name

because people have been saying I've not done it right. It's not Zendejas. It's Sendejas. Okay, okay, so a little bit of a blended ZS. Okay. Yeah, and then it's more of a de than a day for the second syllable. Anyway, Brandon Vasquez at Stryker and then Cade Cowell at left wing. I was surprised that we didn't have like sort of Kell and Acosta in the starting lineup,

probably Aaron Long, I would have expected to start next to Zimmerman. I kind of expected Paul Areola to start. So Hudson just rolled out a bunch of youngsters. I mean, I didn't even know where Signora would play in this case. I didn't know what position he would even play. So he came out in the center mid. He's kind of an in betweener in my mind in the same vein as like a Georgie, Mihailovich, or even a Brennan-Earonzino if they don't play anything close to similar styles.

Right. But just in our system that we've come to know and love, which was definitely still in place for this match. We'll see how long it stays in. place. But yeah, Senora trotted out as a center midfielder. I thought, you know, why is Kate Cal out there? He wasn't even good for the U-20s. Like, he was bad for the U-20s in the summertime. Mikey Vars knows, man. Mikey Vars. I guess, because he was probably the most effective player for the U.S. on the night.

Yeah, I mean, can we just, can we just right off the bat before we talk about timeline stuff, get into that? Can I just ask you a question point blank bells? Yes. So which of the players on the field last night Demanded a spot in the March In the following follow-up camp of March Any if any Sendaz and Vasquez I would say

Demanded is a pretty strong word I know I know it was going to be strong I don't know if any did but then I'll soften it a little bit I'd like to see them in the March camp Did any of them put themselves on an inside track to a potential reserve squad in the Gold Cup. Yeah, same too, probably. I mean, Cowell, there's so many caveats, the Serbia team is, you know, it's not even,

it's not even a normal FIFA window. So these are all guys who are not involved with their clubs in a way that their clubs want to keep them. Their clubs allow them to go. It's the same for us. Jonathan Gomez is allowed to come over. We talked about this last week, allowed to come over across the Atlantic Ocean because he's, they don't need him at rail, so see that right now.

Same with Matthew Hoppe. Slonina, even similar boat. Yeah. And so, I mean, it was supposed to be a bit silly of a question. Like the stakes of this game are so sort of low. But at the same time, you know, we talk about how the top half of our full team roster has established itself, right? 10, 12 guys are in.

Like, you're not moving them. It's going to take a wave of talent to develop to replace any of our top 10 of 12 guys on the full strength, you know, squad. So there aren't a ton of squad spots left that you can really fight for, even for like these exploratory camps that might be coming up in March and June. So it's like you got to stand out amongst the other guys trying to get into those slots to get into these, to get into these camps. And they, you know, those camp spots aren't going, there aren't going to be that many of them.

There just won't be that many chances to audition. So you have some guys here that had been, you know, discussed as possible. options who definitely didn't stand out. And I know that the context around this is difficult too. A lot of these are off-season players, right? Then Dejas is one of the few guys who's like full match sharpness in season form. Everyone else hasn't been playing that much. But this is what you get.

So you can say that this player was rusty. So this wasn't a true test what they can do. But this is the only test you're going to get other than just sort of doing the same old thing of comparing them within their club to other players. roughly at that level. Yeah. I do think, I thought you could tell Sendejas was in mid-season form. Once he started to get on the ball regularly in the second half, he was cooking. Yeah, particularly in that last 25, when other players maybe started to fade,

it made his sharpness all the more contrastful. Contrastful, I like that. I wish we could have gotten the ball to him more in the first half. and I think I put a lot of the blame for that on Aiden Morris and Paxson, and Pommel. And yes, they're rusty. Yes, it's mids, it's offseason form for them. But, I mean, they got to be a million times better than they were last night if they want to, you know,

play meaningful minutes on the national team at this point. Yeah, Aidan Morris is just his body shape to receive the ball. Wasn't doing them any favors, especially if you're going to be, if your touch is going to be a little bit rusty. Like tons of times just getting the. ball from the back line with his hips squarely pointed at Gagas-Lanina. Yeah. I mean, a Pomacal, too. I didn't notice him playing on the half turn with any sort of facility last night.

There were a couple times where he helped the ball along down the line to Cowell. And, you know, he did key that move that ended with him sliding onto a ball from Cowell in the box, perhaps like running into some space that Gomez probably felt like was his. I think those two guys in particular, Pomacall and Morris, they were disappointing to me last night. And part of that might be because, again, high hopes, especially for Pomacall to potentially, you know, like compete right now for like a fourth center midfield slot

for the senior national team. And again, there was nothing from that game that would suggest that he has to be like a priority to even. audition in the next couple camp so it's going to come down I mean this is a chance you know regardless of whatever caveats you want to throw at it it's a chance to impress and if you don't do it here

then you got to really up your game with your club with your club and it's hard to do that and stand out in a way if you're playing in a lower level league so it's it's going to be a steep climb for any one of player in particular from this group to jump

ahead of some of the other guys yeah Yeah, and that's why we did an emergency podcast when Chris Richards started against Manchester United, you know, several days ago, because that matters a lot more than this. All right. All right. All right. I'm going to do last names again, except for a couple of them. Petrovich in goal.

Their right back was Marco Mihailovich. He plays at Vazdavok, a club in Serbia. and he got roasted repeatedly by Kate Cowell. Stoyich. This was Mahalovich's Serbian debut for what it's worth. So, I mean, they had a lot of, we'll call them, untested players as well. Yeah, he's a, he's, this Mahalovich fella has been coming up through their youth ranks, you know, kind of consistently to, I mean, he is 25 now, so it's been a minute. Veselinovich and Stoyich at centerback.

and then another Petrovich at left back, a Pecovich in midfield next to Topich, and then Luca Illich as the sort of number 10 with Simich and Lukich on the Luchich on the wings, and then Dejohn Joe Velichich, the L.A. Galaxy player at Stryker. I think he's been a good player for the Galaxy. So to the timeline.

Yeah. And I'll just get ahead of this now, even though we've already been talking for a while. And if you listen to us a lot, you expect a lot of digression. Digression on the timelines. It's going to be less. We just did the women's game in January, and there was a lot of digression there. But that's because, like, their patterns and themes that they're establishing matter a lot, because that is basically the group that's going to be playing in a World Cup five months from now.

We're going to spend less time on the patterns and really dissecting them for this men's team that just played because it's very much a one-off group. and it's very much unlikely to feature a lot of players who will be playing big roles in this cycle. Yeah. I mean, I think the one, perhaps one player besides Sandejas, who people are really excited, we're really excited to see what the national theme was Brandon Vasquez. And, of course, he scored a goal, and it was a nice goal. I didn't, the first item I have on the timeline is him having a poor touch coming back to the ball. we have a underhit in the third minute and underhit Morris diagonal and

Gressel sort of misstep lead to a Serbian corner kick that has that we get because there's some messiness from us on it I think um Slinina tries go ahead there's a good yeah I was going to say there's a good uh guy got save on it right well yeah he's he palmed it away from the gold mouth but it went might have gone off of Aiden's hand, Aiden Morris's hand, and then there's a shot taken and it goes wide of the post, I think.

Anyway, that's the first 10 minutes. I thought Morris was looking all right early on and Gomez looking behind the pace, but my opinions on those two kind of changed as the game went by. I'll jump in and just say, we weren't, no one anywhere was a complete mess. You know what I mean?

And you could tell that we were working to hold the ball. We weren't solving problems by just hoffing it as far away from us as we could, which again, going back several January, this is kind of a stark change and this is a development for U.S. soccer that we try to hold the ball. And for the most part, we could. Like, there were times where it seemed like we were working really hard just to sort of hold the ball simply, if that makes sense. But there were definitely moments or like long stretches where we could sort of do that. It's a low, low bar.

This isn't, I'm not saying this is like, no, but it's something. Yeah, it's rising stuff. It's important to point that out. Nobody was a disaster last night. I mean, Gomez's first half was kind of disastrous, maybe, but he cleaned it up in the second half.

And then, you know, Neil had that really bad mistake. And so did Walker Zimmerman, which we'll get into. Let's see. So I'm going to, I'm going to kind of stick to the big moments, as you alluded to her just now. Yeah. Okay. 13th minute, we get a good chance. It's a cowl, Kade Cowell cut back to Vasquez.

But it starts with some pressing from Zendejas and Vasquez. And the ball falls to cowl. I think Vasquez maybe got his toe on the clearance from the goalkeeper. Yeah, absolutely more than a toe, like a solid half of a foot at least. And again, the pressing would not look like any. anything new to someone who's been watching the Greg Burr-Alter U.S. men's national team. Like it was, it looked fairly coordinated. There was definitely a purpose, and people knew what their jobs were for the most part.

The timing wasn't always perfect. But in this case, like we had a lot of lanes closed down to the point that Voskas can significantly disrupt a goalkeeper long ball. And it, and it, Cal chests it down, dribbles to the to the end line, and then cuts it back for Voski. it's the right choice and it's a good cut back. Vasquez tries to hit it with his in-step, which is difficult, you know, hits it with his right in-step as it comes across his body. It's a difficult shot, but he slices it wide.

It's a difficult shot and he slices it wide. But it's a good chance created by our press and then it's good execution to get a shot off once we've sort of disrupted Serbia this way. Yeah, and I thought immediately I was like, man, cows been pretty good so far. And he got better as the game went on. Gomez getting in space, but he can't get a cross past the first defender.

He had eight crosses blocked, I think, on the night. There's a good intervention in the box, so we get another good chance in the 19th minute, a good intervention in the box from Neil, who I thought was actually pretty good in this game, you know, all things considered outside of the second goal. Neil pokes it to Aidan Morris after, you know, corralling a ball over the top. Morris plays it to Pomacall, Palmacall to Gomez, back to Palmacall,

who kind of drives forward steps and plays it to Sendehas' feet. And he holds a guy off with some panache. And then outside of the boots it to Sonora in space, Sonora in space in the center circle, Senora drives forward and plays a pass to Cowell that was either very clever or very poor because it's kind of right at the defender but the defender's back is turned.

Cal steps in between Sonora and the defender and takes a touch to give himself some space at the top of the box and hits a good one, kind of a curler that goes a little bit wide. Yeah, Cal was definitely on top of hitting shots that were just inches off of scoring goals. The Senora pass, yeah, if he was trying to actually hit it through and put Cal in behind, then it was badly underhit. If it was designed to let Cowell sort of step in between Senora and the defender, then it was a lovely pass.

Yeah. We won't know. Right. I mean, it worked perfectly. And, you know, we looked, I think, the more dangerous side at that part of the game, 25th, no, 24th minute. We get another big chance. This is Aidan Morris' Aidan Morris's long unfolding counterattack

and strike from distance. He kind of puts a guy down in our defensive third and then dribbles 60 yards in no hurry at all. Very leisurely transition moment here. So it's a 3V2. He's got Cal to his left and San Dejas to his right. Or maybe it's Vasquez to his left. I can't remember.

It's Vasquez. Cal actually arrives even later because there was a lot of time for this to happen. And Cowell was like, these guys aren't moving very fast. And I am very fast. And so he finally joins in late and was going to be the second attacker on the left side of the ball with Foskett. Okay. Well, the centerbacks, the retreating centerbacks just continue to retreat. They don't step to Morris ever.

He doesn't really force them to make a decision on who to step to because he's moving kind of slow. So he gets to the top of the box, he just hits one. And it's a respectable shot, but it was saved somewhat comfortably it looked like. Yeah, it's a good, it's a well-taken shot from that area of the field that I wish we wouldn't, but I wish it wasn't the shot that we ended up with on the three and eventually with Cal 4V2 situation. Yeah. There was some debate about this. Like, should he, what should he have done differently?

Because they, because the defenders weren't coming to him. So he can keep, I mean, he can kind of keep waiting. There's also, this crops up again in the second half. We get where it's three on three instead of three on two. But everyone just kind of stays in their lane here. And I tend to not want players to just stay in a vertical channel when you're attacking 3B2. So whether that's Vosquez cutting across the face of the leisurely moving Morris to drag his defender over. If we do that, then it's definitely going to be a late arriving cowl that would end up one on zero.

to just sort of pass into. But you also then let you allow Morris to make a better chance, like a better decision. Because if that defender with Vasquez steps with Vasquez, then Morris can just cut into the left side of the box and be sort of more, less opposed to get a shot off. But anyway, yeah, it wasn't a particularly well executed three on two, I guess is what I would say.

No, I agree. So still zero zero. We get our goal in the 29th minute. it's a lovely ball from Julian Gressel, who is playing right back for us. His one real positive moment in the game and a lovely glancing header to the far post from Vasquez. I don't know what the XG was on this shot, but not much, probably not much. It's a nice bit of pistoning.

I mean, you're talking about like the Burrhalter style, like it's still in full effect here. It's Zendayaas start. Yeah, Zendayaas was starting out wide. I had that wrong. It was Signora out on the. like right touchline. He cheats way in and back towards the ball. And I think Aiden Morris was just standing on it comfortably.

And so Gressel switches with with Signore, and he ends up out on the right sideline all by himself because Signora's movement had brought the defender in. So it's Gressel with all the time in the world. Again, a bit of the friendlies about it. But whatever, he's got all the time in the world picks his head up. And then Vosquez is just one v.1 in the box. Like there's no other Serbian player in the box.

It's just Voskis and one defense. offender. So 1V1, meaning the centerback in Vosquez. He has the entire box to work with, to create some separation. He does it. And then it's still, you know, yeah, it's a tough header to flick your head, get that neck strength going, get it looping into the top corner. He kind of ran a little post route on the center back out and then in, but yeah, it's good.

It's good movement, a good finish. And yeah, good from Sonora to. drop deep and try to find some solutions because we were having we were struggling a little bit to progress the ball um all right 32nd minute so it's one zero USA 30 second minute a chance for Serbia we get we just get our right side just gets cut through like like butter with a hot knife and um neal is jeline neal is a little slow to close on the ball carrier um and it gets cut back for a shot from from the kills of known from Simich and Slanina makes a save and then as it spins up on him toward the goal line,

it's going to probably go in if he doesn't touch it again. He gets a hand back and pause it forward. So kind of, you know, highlight real save from Gaga Slanina. Yeah, great stuff for Gaga. This is his debut. And I think people who have been excited for Gaga for a long time are going to be feeling pretty good right now. Yeah.

I even like the way he was setting up the wall when Serbia scored on us at the end of the first half. He was very serious about it. And, you know, ordering Walker Zimmerman around him, that free kick was not his fault. Right. And I promise I won't talk about the patterns too much. But we weren't super clean with our central midfield three. I didn't think in their rotations. So this chance that led to this Gaga, I'm going to call it a double safe, whatever.

It just comes from like, Signora and Aidan Morris sort of getting poled. around a little bit and the domino effect here was uh walker zimmerman crashing up field to try to arrive at the at a to meet an entry pass and defend it um and nobody tracking the player who made the entry pass who just then blitz through everybody uh Zimmerman included um to to just be full on on the run and that was where eventually neal comes over to close him down as he as he burst through the line with the ball well gressel got left for dead too there yeah yeah yeah uh Just the lack of awareness on this player with this level of momentum coming through for a simple layoff to then again just be running full speed at the edge of our box. Yeah, into no opposition.

Yeah, there's an awesome still frame if you time it right where like four of our players are all in a huddled mass six yards behind the ball. Yeah. All in a three yard circle. Yeah, I didn't think Gressel. I mean, so everybody's saying, well, Gressel doesn't, doesn't defend. He doesn't know how to defend. That's not his game. I'm like, well, maybe this is his testimonial then, you know?

Like, I mean, he's a wingback, right? Like, he rarely, I want to say he rarely played fullback in a back four. Atlanta United fans can come get me for that. But I feel like he was making his living as a wingback, just diming service in left and right. I mean, from the right. but just hitting great service in all season to some very good Atlanta attackers. Yeah.

I mean, he got like a trillion assists passing the ball to Joseph Martinez. Well, Joseph Martinez got a trillion goals receiving the ball from Julian Gressel. That's how I like to think of it, Bell. Okay. Okay. All right, a lovely combination from Serbia.

Well, it was again, Nervy on the ensuing corner kick, but then Serbia does a lovely combination again through our right side and Simich has a volley. It's right at Gaga. A good layoff from Vasquez to Sendejas on the ensuing clearance. And then we get to the nice flowing move in the 41st minute from the U.S. So it's Sonora to Vasquez to Zendajas to Morris to Zendayaas to Pomacall.

And then Pomacol helps it along to Cowell. And then Pomacol makes a run into the box right down the channel. and kind of slides, but he can't really get enough on it to fizz the ball across for anybody. Yeah, a little bit of a little taste of Zendayaas and his, what I noticed, what stood out the most for me was his technical ability. And that shines the most for what, like, is some really tight cornering ability. Yeah. He can, like, very sharply turn a corner and set up a teammate who you didn't think he would be able to face that quickly. That's very well said, yeah.

I thought that that's a good way to put it. And he does it, you know, throughout that last 20 minutes of the game repeatedly. So 43rd minute Serbia scores their goal. It's a clumsy foul from Pomagal who had just just made that long run down the other side of the field. And maybe it was a little frustrated that he hadn't gotten more out of it. I'm just, you know, psychologizing there. But he fouls somebody to free kick from 20 yards. Like I said earlier, Gaga spends a lot of time setting up the wall.

and then when Luca Illich takes the shot with his left foot, Zimmerman just jumps out of his spot in the wall and it goes through where he was standing and into the net. Not even that good of a free kick. Very silly. Yeah, really silly. I tell every goalkeeper I work with that being in a wall just makes people dumber.

Like people just get dumber when they're part of a wall. I don't know what it is. It's a weird phenomenon. You can't communicate with them properly. like they just they just lose all sense like all common sense when you're standing in a wall for some reason standing next to three other people uh holding your business every every like ounce of common sense goes out the window um i don't i mean i don't know what their instructions are what our set piece coach has them working on by the way is our set piece coach out within this house cleaning or still in uh don't know okay uh i mean not to go on like a whole set piece wall person laying down tangent here but like jumping It's like it's often bad like jumping is usually kind of bad like it's hard to keep everybody shoulder to shoulder when everybody like squats and then jumps. Yeah. And always time to jump well.

You're using an entire extra player as the laying down player who has a very hard time getting into the play quickly after being on the ground, you know, as the kick is taken. So I've long had questions about the, about the efficacy of having the player lay down. behind the wall. As a keeper, I would rather just like have the wall, stand perfectly still, don't lean, just take anything that comes right at you and keep it from getting through you. And that's your job. Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe, maybe instead of having a guy stand, lay down behind the wall, you have the wall guys hold the other guy up in the air above their heads. And then nobody has to move. That's brilliant. I love it. All right. So that was it. One, one. Um, it's weird, you know, people are going to, people are going to see Jalen Neal's mistake.

And as, you know, what is he, why is he even here? I don't know that anybody's even saying that, but I feel like that could, that is something somebody could say. Jalen Neal, he's just not ready. He's just not ready to play for the national team. And, but really like Zimmerman made as bad of a mistake as Neil did. I mean, I'll, the only reason I don't think so is because in my, again, in my head I like distinguish between soccer mistakes and whatever whatever like a jumping out of a wall is. I don't even, I don't even know.

Like I just, I just hate. Yeah, that's fair. I hate how walls behave. And in this case, Zimmerman was definitely the guilty party. I've definitely experienced that.

You get into a wall and you're just kind of, your brain starts to slow down. Oh man. It's strange. So, so yeah, I mean, Zimmerman and even Gressle a little bit like,

fliers just a little bit to the right. And you don't have to move that much for a soccer ball. ball to sneak past you. So if you just twist your body a little to jump, you get more height on your jump or whatever else, you don't jump straight up like a, and salmon, like, that's it. It's, I retract it. It's not the same level of a mistake that. I mean, Neal's just like a super naive in soccer mistake.

Like it has, it's like a poor read in soccer. And Zimmerman's is just like a really dumb body contorting wall action. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, it was kind of spazzy. All right. Long comes on for Zimmerman at the half. I didn't see if there was anything to do with like a tweak for Zimmerman.

It might just be that he's ready for trying to get ready for the Columbia game. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just, I mean, both those guys, I mean, they're in totally different places. Where do you think they stand in the sort of post-World Cup era? Or does it all depend on who the coach is? Yeah, I guess it depends if we get. it's hard for me to see Aaron Long playing a role going forward outside of this camp, I guess.

Right? Unless it's like Jesse Marsh and Jesse just loves him some Aaron Long, I don't see it either. Whereas I feel like Zimmerman could. For as much as people tend to group them together. And yeah, Zimmerman's what, 29? He's not one of our young guys. But he like he very much for me is like the definition of the floor setter. Like the guy played three World Cup games and he had his bad moment, but he also didn't get just exposed over and over and over again. And that's kind of the floor to set to be on the World Cup roster. Yep. Yeah, I think they are in different positions, definitely.

And, you know, with Richard's coming on, Tim Riem continuing to play well, I think. John Anthony Brooks moving back to the Bundes League of Bells. I know. He's back from the dead. Maybe. We'll see. Okay. So the second Serbia goal comes right after halftime, right after the kickoff. And it's a, it actually starts with Aaron Long, getting a little impatient in possession and just hoofing it down to the Serbian backline.

And then the Serbian back line hoofs it back to our back line. And it kind of bounces in front of Jalen Neal and he kind of gets a touch to it and just hesitates as it rolls between his. him and Jonathan Gomez and Valshko Simich darts through, takes it, and slots it past. Slanina, thank you very much. And, you know, that was Jalen Neal's big bad moment for the night because I thought otherwise he was pretty good. Yeah, it was a classic sky ball and he's, how old is Jaylon Neal? 19? 19, I believe. Yeah.

He just didn't read the sky ball very well. And so, and even after, I mean, those are like legitimately different to judge than. than like the normal ball trajectory you're used to judging. But even that wasn't like the overall mistake, right? Like he didn't come win the sky ball, that's fine. The super bad mistake is acting like you have the luxury of time when you very definitely do not have the luxury of time

after the ball is bounced. Right. I think he and Gomez kind of both maybe thought the other was going to come to it and Simich got there first. Yeah. Yep. Don't shield a ball for another player. take when you're sort of running back at your own goal just like just solved a problem like that's what

that's what Neil learned there I'm sure yeah hard I can't imagine he'll make that same mistake again soon so 2-1 that's the final scoreline but there were some chances for the US before we uh for we sign off here uh cowl had hit the post twice in one minute in the 56 minute first he runs onto an errant back pass uh very jalen Neilish felt like it was them returning the favor. Right. It kind of worse really because it was like they played Cowell in and he he hits a good left footed shot low and hard at the far corner and it hits the post in a way that it ricochets right across the face of the goal. And then it goes out of bounds way over on the other side after a throw in he kind of slaloms through some half-hearted defending in the box and then

hits the near post with his right foot. So Cade Cowell bringing some excitement for the fans. 11,475 announced fans in the stadium. It didn't look like that many. Subs, 58th minute, Williamson comes on for Sonora, who I think had a pretty quiet outing, all things considered. But he was, you know, some good stuff. It's one of those where I, like, I'm glad he was in this camp,

and I'm not saying he shouldn't be in any other camps. But he was just sort of totally forgettable. Yeah, I think that's fair. 59th minute we just give the rock to Cade and he burns two guys and has one from 30 yards another curler that's not bad and a little wide and then he burns this guy again and crosses for Zendahas whose header is defended well.

We get subs in the 60 second, 63rd, and 73rd minutes. De Juan Jones comes on for Julian Gressel. Acosta comes on for Pomacall. Matthew Hoppe back from the wilderness on for Brandon Vasquez. And then in the 73rd minute we get Areola for Cowell, who gets a good round of applause when he comes off. 74th.

Sorry, I want to actually even retract my signora, my signora take. Because like, while I say it was forgettable, it's just because I didn't, I really, I genuinely mean I didn't notice him. So I guess I'm not retracting that part. But what I do want to do is be like, he just requires like a closer look. Like I got to, I got to use a full senior rewatch to see. if he was doing just a bunch of tidy little stuff

that just kind of went unnoticed because, you know, because so much of the attention got wrapped up with like the more eye-popping stuff from Cade Cowell. So that's all. I just wanted to jump back in and say, I didn't mean to say Signora like didn't do a single thing. Well. Right.

Yeah, thanks for that clarification. I do think part of it is we didn't, our midfield wasn't humming from defense to the attack. So that's not going to help Sonora shine. And then he did, you know, he did play that ball to Cowell. He played the pass to Gressel before Gressel hit the cross for Vasquez. So it's not like he wasn't involved in anything. Right, right.

And part of the being forgettable is he also didn't have any major mistakes. Like some of the stuff that stood out to me from other players was stuff that stood out in a way that was like, ah, they aren't, they aren't doing enough right here. to help to help us. Yeah, Pomacol and Morris both had, you know, a couple of, a couple of giveaways in bad spots.

I don't think Signora did. 74th minute. There was a one, sorry to keep jumping in on the, there was the one exchange between Signora and Neal, and it was probably more on Neal than on Senora,

but like 50th minute. And Signora had kind of held the ball with his back to the field, like holding off a challenger for a while, several touches. And then to solve it was just going to hit it across to the, you know,

centerback looked off Aaron Long right next to him, played it over to Neil. And it was kind of a hospital ball that Neil did a really poor job dealing with and actually got it kind of poked away by Serbian player. And then Serbia actually raced in and put the ball in the back of our net, but the flag went up for offside in the transition. So that was another, another shaky Neil moment. And also like a frustrating Aaron Long moment because while all that was happening, Aaron Long had like his arms up complaining to the referee that there should have been a foul earlier

rather than like getting back into the right match shape. Okay. Anyway. Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. 74th minute, we get another chance on some good pressing from Sendejas and Areola. And San Dehosa back heels it to Polly for a shot inside the box. He just kind of hits it tamely at the keeper. But lovely from the Club America guy.

Yes. And this, I feel like this is where Sunda House really started cooking. Yeah. Yeah, he had one from distance after carrying it 30 yards in the 75th minute, also pretty harmless, pretty well wide. And then we get a Jones cut back. This is a really good chance, actually. 79th minute. Eric Williamson does a man's tackle on somebody, takes the ball, and they're right at the edge of our attacking third.

He plays it to Jones, and Jones just roasts a guy up the right wing and cuts it back for Aureola. perfect, like the perfect pass. It didn't look like there was a pass on in real time to me. But an ariola pummel that pass at the near post, and it's saved well by the keeper. Yeah. And this, this was all preceded by a little bit more of that Zendayaas cornering magic. And then like, so before all that sequence, Zendhas had kind of worked the ball with the right flank. Got a nice entry pass into the box with Aiden Morris.

Aid Morris returns it to Zendaias in the box. And then it's kind of a loose touch. and that's what leads to the Williamson Man's Challenge sort of just out just at the edge of the final third. Was that the one where Zendaz hit it with his right foot? Why to the goal? Because I didn't put that in the timeline, but... No, this wasn't a Zendaya's shot.

This was him just receiving it at the corner of the box, trying to lay it off to Kelan Acosta, who was like underlapping him, but they just kind of get their read and tempo wrong. and then Williamson cleans up with a delightful sliding challenge. Okay. Jones was kind of saucy there at the end too.

And then Williamson and San De Haas had some good combinations with each other. That's it for the time line. Williamson a little bit messier. And again, he's another one who was hoping would be right there at the edge of maybe the senior team roster ready to jump in as needed. And he had good moments, but then he had a few others where it's just like, oh, man, that's exactly the kind of thing that would keep a coach from trusting him on a World Cup roster. Well, and again, that's three months after his last competitive match.

Yeah, we have to give everybody grace here, including Pomacall and Morris, I think. Is they're out of season? But, yeah, nobody's making any demands at this point to use the word you. Except you could argue Sandas. His last 20, right? His last 20 was enough. But again, the issue is going to be trying to get on that March roster. That's going to be a tough one to crack, especially at his position, because you're dealing

with a pretty crowded field and you still have like a Malik Tillman. And this also gets into the coaching uncertainty because, you know, if this was the real coach, then they might want to say, okay, well, I just got to look at these guys now in March. I want to introduce myself to Malik, to Georgie, to whoever else. Paredes, but now it's like, it's Hudson. So I don't know what Hudson's priority is in the March window, whether he's like, okay, this was my chance to get acquainted with these guys. I feel like Hudson will try to introduce more players to the program, not necessarily

him meet the players, because for whatever else, I just doubt Hudson believes he's got a real shot at the national. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe every coach thinks they're going to do it. But they would be the one to do the job. But I think Hudson will get more players acquainted with the program. So I think he'll get like Malik and Paredes a shot with the national team in March ahead of giving Zendayaas a repeat chance. What do you think?

Do you think maybe it's the other way and he just, it's like doubles as recruiting for Zendayaas to keep him in the fold? I mean, what about using him as an eight? I mean, I don't see. He just gave me a look. I don't see it. But then again, I feel like you were grumpy there for a second. I feel like all these betweeners really belong in our system. on the wing.

Like I don't think Brendan should really be an eight. I don't think Georgie should be in the center midfield. I feel like for us, it's like these are luxury players in the attack and this. So I'm always like, now that they should all be fighting for some half space wing, half space merchant minutes. We just ask so much of our eights.

Exactly. We only have two of them, really. Yeah, I would like him to get another chance. He just, he got to play the full match. And that was great. but I think he, you know, if Christian Roldan can get like 90 caps over the last four years,

whatever it is, I know it's not that many. And I'm not, I got nothing against Christian Roldon, but, you know, Alejandro can get a few more caps here too. Well, and here's what I keep thinking about. It's sort of that roadmap, right, of looking at the whole picture of now until August. And you don't necessarily have to get Zendaya's into the March camp if you, have the two events in June bookmarked for me. And that Gold Cup, like, that is a great chance to be like, hey, we're going to have six games for you where we can really extend your audition through a Gold Cup.

Yeah. But I also understand the sort of sense of nature here of dual nationals and, like, you don't want to even indirectly, like, snub them. And I'm not saying you've got to cater to people necessarily, but there's no cost to a March call. You can have as big a camp as you want. you want Zendayaas to make sure he still feels included, which is a real like person manager concern.

Like bring him into the March camp and have a, yeah, whatever you were going to bring, bring that plus one person. I mean, he was good. So he deserves it. It's just like, I don't want, I want to like expand the, the invite list significantly with some of these, these, these guys breaking out in Europe. I don't think, you know, to answer your question, uh, on the nose, I don't think, I would not, uh, displace.

Sendez with Kevin Paredes at winter. I'm going to take Zendayaas first. I gotcha. And I totally, I think that's a totally legit. He was good. Like he showed some things. And we have another friendly to go.

So we'll see more of him. No, no, he won't. He went back home, didn't he? He did, yeah. Perettis and, you know, Paredes can get back to me

when he starts playing fullback. What about Malik? We still got Malik. We still got Georgie. We got all these guys. Yeah. No, I want Zendahas. I wanted to stay involved in the picture.

So whether that's the March call-up or whether that's like an extended run in the summer, whatever. Just I think he's one whose last 30 minutes really said something. Yeah. Georgie scored yesterday in the Ayrdivizzi. I guess as many of you already know, Giovanni Raina scored again yesterday. A match winner. Yeah. All he does is win matches.

That's right. That's one of the things he does. And I think that's it. Yeah, Jonathan Gomez, I think still needs some time. Yes. I mean, since you just brought him up right before we go here, and that's another position that is there for the taking for the senior squad, right? It's left back or backup left back, I guess, if you want to call it that.

And I'm not sure that, like, Gomez really put his name on even, like, the top of the audition list with that game. I'm hoping to see Tolkien in the next game. and then I'm not saying like Dwan Jones did so much in his brief time at right back to be like maybe he's the left back but he plays a lot of left back too so it's good that we have three potential uh tryout teas in this camp yeah I'm glad for the partly for dual national reasons I'm glad Jonathan Gomez is in this camp I'm glad he got his chance I do want to see John Tolkien against Columbia at left back and um Anything else want specifically in that Columbia game? More Williamson.

I want to see Williamson get a start. I would be a little disappointed if Sonora doesn't get another chance, a few more minutes at least. Let him run in Zendaya's spot. Let them just take that starting spot opposite Cowell. There you go. Plays higher up the line. Then that gives Williamson on the field too.

Vosquez gets to another shot. to start up top, Tolkien it left back. It's going to be a fun game against Columbia. Yep. And I guess the big thing is we don't have to learn anything.

We can still just have a little bit of fun. Yep. That's the new motto of the scuff party. Thanks to Tara. Yeah, 7.30 Eastern Time on Saturday. At Dignity Health Sports Park. That's the Galaxy Stadium. Scuffed is an ad-free podcast.

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