Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #362: USMNT v Colombia recap

Episode Date: January 29, 2023

No big winners from January Camp! Except perhaps Zendejas. Greg and Belz were morally obligated to recap this soccer match, but we did find some things to discuss.----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. January camp is over. We laughed. We cried. We lost to Serbia a few nights ago. And then we drew Columbia Zero Zero last night. You know, at least last night, everybody played hard. There was a level of intensity in that first half that was kind of fun to see, didn't you think?

Yeah, there was some full-blooded challenges. We didn't always look like the group that was going to come out on the better end of those full-bladder. blood of challenges. We had some little brotherness going on in this game, for sure. Paxton. Paxton was, he spent the game on the floor. In his defense, the referee wasn't doing him any favors. Not that we should always expect it.

But in this particular game especially, letting things get physical was not going to go well for Paxton. Right. Yeah. And yeah, it seemed to almost get worse as the game went on for him. We should just say right off the top, I don't know how much of larger significance there is to take from this game. This one in particular, the whole camp, where do you want to go with it?

I don't think you're wrong on either front. There's some marginal insight, I think, about the player pool from this camp and from this game last night. But, you know, the really interesting stuff is, you know, Azi Akmar versus Utrecht yesterday. and how Taylor Booth played and what's going on with the Federation and who the new coach is going to be. Right. John Brooks,

John Brooks stepping into the 11 for Hoffenheim. Right. Luca della Torre playing for Seltavigo today. Like, all of that stuff is definitely more important than any performance or even the combined performances from these two friendlies.

Right. So the thing I kind of compare it to is a poker analogy, like satellite tournaments to get into the main World Series Poker event. This is like a satellite tournament that you have to win just to get into another satellite tournament to maybe get a chance to be in the World Series of poker.

Like a lot of these guys who are auditioning, I mean, they are remote, their chances remain remote and where to begin with. Is it kind of like they're in the fifth division and they have several seasons, to go before they can make it to the Premier League. I think that's an apt way of putting it. Not that they won't, you know, quickly accelerate their progress, some of these players.

I mean, probably somebody who was in this camp will take some big leaps forward soon. It's just hard to tell who. And I don't know that there's a clear winner of this satellite tournament. Maybe Zendayaas. Yeah, it's Sendejas, I think. And again, even then the picture's not entirely. clear of how instantly he'll kind of be given his next chance and whether he'll be able to parlay that chance into more chances as things go along.

But really, the reason he's the winner of this camp is not because of what he did in this camp. It's because he's a good player for Club America. Absolutely. And I actually jumped right back into the starting lineup when he returned this last night. They went 6-0 against Mazatlan. I don't, he wasn't on the score sheet. All right, let's do the lineups. Is that okay with you?

Yeah, absolutely. Ten changes from the, from the survey match, but list him off bells. Quite a few, yeah. Sean Johnson and goal, Dewan Jones, Walker Zimmerman, Aaron Long, and John Tolkien across the back line. Tolkien was one, I think a lot of us were interested in seeing. Callan Acosta at the 6,

Eric Williamson, and Paxton-Erensen as the 8th, and then Paul Areola, Jesus Ferreira, and Matthew Hoppe. across the front line. Kind of crazy to see Matthew Hoppy out there. I mean, he's fun. He's fun to watch. He's got some very distinct arms.

The Matthew Hoppy arms when he plays are striking. I think, I want to say that this is basically the most capped 11 that Hudson could have possibly fielded. If not, it was really close. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, Hoppy was a national team regular a couple years ago. Yeah, the gold cup, Hoppin, Hoppin Williams, we've got some gold cup run. Zimmerman Long, obviously, is a pairing that, you know, you see people saying,

why would we do this? We definitely don't really need to see them together anymore. And that is totally true. We don't need to see Zimmerman Long together anymore. That's not, we're not getting any new information from them. It kind of just doesn't matter because we don't really need to see the other guys who are in this camp. All the centerback pairings that we do need to see are not available for this, for this runout. Yeah, it would have been kind of fun to see more of Jail and Neil

and get some more information on him, but nah, who cares? Jalen Neil, I mean, who cares, not because who cares about Jail and Neil, it's just like whether he becomes a bona fide national team centerback really has nothing to do with whether he played last night or not. It's like, it's about all these other things going on in his career, whether he can get minutes in L.A., and eventually whether he can get a move to Europe, not to put too fine a point on it.

Right. See who comes calling for him after the U-20 World Cup. Right. That's where it's going to be. The centerbacks of immediate relevance are all sort of already across the pond. See, Rich Chris Richards, Cameron Carter Vickers, even like if you're going to get experimental, it'd be like Austin trustee. Yeah, Mark McKenzie. I mean, that wouldn't be experimental, but.

So Palace didn't play this weekend, huh? They play Manchester United on Saturday. Yeah, a lot of the Champo and EPL teams that are not in the FAA Cup didn't play. There were a couple of championship games scattered about on the weekend, but a lot of teams off this week. All eyes on Wrexham, Sheffield United. Well, two things before we get into the Columbia lineup. One, we're going to have a Monday review tomorrow where we talk about the action from the weekend.

that'll be for patrons only. I mean, but there is a lot to talk about Weston at Leeds, the Weston to Leeds transfer process, Giorana's fitness debate and, you know, Taylor Booth's performance. So, you know, join the Patreon and listen to that. The other thing is Rexum, I do think the Rexum story is interesting. Do you do you? Yeah, anytime a lower club makes a run like that,

it's interesting. And the fact that this one comes baked in with like the, They've already built like this underdog storyline. And then they happen to be the underdog that is making a run through the FA Cup is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, I think, have you watched any of the show? No, I haven't watched the single minute of it. Is it solid stuff?

Solid stuff may be a little promising a little bit much, but it is interesting. I mean, it's a 158 year old club. You know, they have the, I think the oldest still in existence international stadium in the world. or maybe second oldest or something. So they used to be a big championship club. And they've fallen on hard times.

They have no, there's no economy in northern Wales. You know, it's very much like Rust Belt place. So it's an underdog story, like you said. But an underdog story about a club that used to be successful.

And then you add into that, the whole promotion relegation possibility and the storytelling of Ryan Reynolds and actually it's the handsomeness of Ryan Reynolds and the storytelling ability of Rob McElhaney. It absolutely helps that to people over here who sort of got into any English soccer in the last 10 or 15 years,

Rexum totally sounds like a fake place. Like you never, in all my however many years of like kind of following along with English soccer, never heard of it. It's never popped up anywhere until now. So you didn't know at the beginning whether it was real or whether it's sort of just a Ted Lassie. S.O. Part 2.

Yeah, I think Scranton. That's Rexham. But smaller. All right. So on to the topic at hand. The Colombian lineup was Alvaro Montero of Millionarios in Bogota, the club in Bogota at goalkeeper. One Mosquera from Portland at right back, Alexis Perez and Andres Yinas, who also plays for millionaires at centerback.

and then Frank Fabra from Bucca Juniors at left back. He was active. And then Hormon Campuzano at the 6th, who plays in Turkey. He was kind of a nice player, number 21. And then Dylan Borero and Yulmar Velazquez, who plays in the Colombian League as the 8s, I guess. And then the front line was Diego Valois, who plays for Taleris in Argentina on the right wing.

Christian Orongo plays for LASC as the striker. Kucho Hernandez who plays for Columbus on the left wing, although they kind of, they were fluid up front. Any thoughts on the line? It was like a pretty evenly matched contest, it seemed to me. I mean, there was the physicality of the Colombians, but. Yeah, you're just talking balance of play?

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's about right. I think the theme for me was, you know, you went through our lineup and you think about who those attackers were. And this is something we kind of brought up and maybe when we're talking about the off-year gold cup rosters, you look at those attackers, and every one of them basically would need to be,

like, at best, the fifth best attacker on the field to really be able to even play. Like, you can't make this group of five attackers. Or how are, I mean, they just aren't going to look very ruthless or cutthroat. And I think, I feel like that's kind of what the story of the game was. We still crafted out a couple of clear chances. But these just, these aren't match-winning. attackers.

For either team, you think? No, that's just for the U.S. Just for the U.S. Like we, you know, we were okay at times. We weren't, again, we weren't shambolic at any point. So I guess in that sense, like we were organized. But there was just, there was never any cutting edge I felt like in the attacking third.

One or two moments where everything, everything clicked. Yeah. To create a chance. But it didn't look like we were, you know, any kind of a machine out there. Yeah. Well, the thing is, Hoppy kind of, as messy as he can be, and he was messy in this game, and also the fact that he doesn't play for Middlesbrough is, you know, a strike against him. Despite all that, he still kind of can make stuff happen.

And I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready to completely close the door on his national team career. It's probably going to be a while if I'm in charge before he gets another call up. But anyway, yeah. Well, let's get into the timeline, yeah, because I think he's going to basically start things off with the first real event of the game. Yeah, first real event of the game is in the sixth minute. It's a Zimmerman ball over the top. Hoppy takes it off his chest, eliminating Fabra in that one motion, and then kind of pauses for a moment on the ball, thinks about shooting,

blaze it back for Aronson, and Aronson hits it softly at the keeper. That is what happened. Great, like great take down from Hoppe. I mean, really good take down. Yes, yeah, to eliminate that defender. And then also, like, the cover defender does slide over a step or two. And Hoppe makes the exact right decision in my mind and the right execution for the layoff. Like, it is set up perfectly.

He takes Aronson's first touch for him, I think is how Burrcamp describes it. That could be wrong. I don't remember if that was Burr camp or not. We'll go with it. But it's such, it's such like a crucial piece of attacking play is to make sure that that last pass doesn't make the, finish any more difficult than it needs to be. And yeah, and so Aronson kind of soft-footed it. I think that's even a little harsh.

It was just a little bit too close to the keeper. I mean, he hit a firm pass towards what he thought was the open portion of the goal. Yeah, Alex Mendez scores that. There's like two people on Twitter who are going to be really mad when they hear me say that. Six 55 mark, pretty bad Aaron Long giveaway. And I think this is where I'll give my little Aaron long bit. He was who we thought he is strong in the air, pretty good defensively in duels, and just a train wreck on the ball.

I mean, train wreck's too strong. He wasn't a train wreck, but not to be relied upon on the ball. Yeah. And he, I mean, he sort of remains a zero where what you hope is he just doesn't have any of these kinds of giveaways. And you are at no point expecting anything else, like anything. where he's hitting a guy in a pocket. He has a few entry pass attempts throughout this game that almost always lead to a turnover from the player receiving it,

not always entirely on Aaron Long, but not in a way where Aaron Long is like doing the many favors, hitting that pass into them in that moment. And then there's a total... Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, and it's still just that contrast to Zimmerman,

who might not be everyone's favorite, but throughout this game hits numerous entry passes into pockets, into seams, to players who can then cook a lot of, a little bit if they were better cooks. Yeah. Tolkien gives it away almost immediately after Long does in this, in sort of the same area of the field, trying to pass it to Hoppy.

But I mean, we just, we just put these giveaways in the same thing. They're completely different classes of giveaways, right? Tolkien's is just trying to go up the line to Hoppe. So he's playing it up to, you know, the third line and he turns it over. And it's like, okay, well, it's not great. But we're all in shape to now defend this. Long's giveaway is passing along the back line to Tolkien and it gets just picked off. It's like a, it's like a QB throwing an interception to the flat where it's obviously

just going to get returned straight for the pick sick. That was more like what Long's was, where Long then had to hustle back to intervene or it's 1 v.1 against the goalkeeper. We weren't punished. Despite some of our mistakes, Columbia was not, you know, didn't seem fully equipped to punish us when we did make mistakes. That's why I say it was an evenly matched contest It seemed like the players were about equal on both sides

Equally competent but also equally inept Yeah there you go Tenth minute we get that Defected Acosta tries to play a ball over the top It gets deflected out to Williamson And he takes a touch on the right side It hits it cross field to Hoppe in the box

Who brings it down again Takes him a little bit wide of the goal and he tries to cut it back, not a tight enough angle on the cut back, and it's claimed by Montero. Any thoughts on that? Relatively mundane sequence of events? No, not really.

I mean, that's about what it was, right? I don't have anything. Here we are. 11th minute, good work up our right flank from Columbia. A cross has stood up from wide, and this is where you notice Long's Valley. he just throws himself at it. Meaningless friendly,

just throws his noggin at the other guy's noggin and manages to nod it away. Yeah, not a ton to this one. Columbia kind of overloaded our hour right side, a nice third man run from deep from their left back. And the thing that kind of half stood out to me here was just Zimmerman kind of putting himself in no man's land as this ball went down into the final third,

into the Man City zone. So Acosta's chasing it down. and Zimmerman, when the cross comes in, can't really defend anybody. So this is why Long has to race over to that near-post player and throw himself in in that desperate way because Zimmerman kind of wasn't in any position to make a play. Okay.

So not a perfect performance from Walker Zimmerman. No, definitely not. We get a chance from our press about a minute later than this. Hoppe finds Ferreira, who finds, you know, pass it to Ariel at the edge of the box and he's just a poor first touch. He had a ton to do to score from there or set up the next shot,

but still, the phrase danger, the phrase danger adjacency, echoes in my mind still. Nice, nice little ball in from Ferreira, a little disguise to sneak that ball into the, through the inside of the defender's body

who was pressuring Ferreira as he received it. But yeah, it's coming in the air. It's never going to be an easy one for Ariola. and I don't know. I don't have a lot for it. He just kind of leaves it there for the defender. Yeah, yeah.

He tries to do a cute little bang, bang touch to get it on goal, and it doesn't come off. If you haven't listened to Sanjay's interview with Paul Ariola, you absolutely should. That's a great one. It is really good, yeah. Remarkably candid from Paul, I thought. 14th minute, we get another big chance. we kind of have the ball in their defensive third for a while and it's a nice combo up the right side off a throw in. Ferreira receives it with his back to the goal and he's kind of juggling it there

inside the box. He plays it out to Williamson and then plays it quickly into Ariola and then Aureola just backheels it kind of judging that a back heel in that situation is going to cause some problems for the defense and they do and it does. It trickles past I believe it trickles past Jones and then goes to Aronson right by the penalty marker perfect opportunity to shoot his shot is on target but poked

wide by a defender sliding desperately into the path of the ball and kind of tings off the post but yeah probably our best chance of the game maybe with with a little competition from the earlier Aronson shot and then the hoppy one later

Yeah, I think so. And this is sort of our one of our better moments of, you know, coordination in attack. We talked about how there isn't a lot of cutting edge with this personnel. And even here, like, I'm not sure Ferreira's little initial flick that ends up with Williamson is even meant to go to Williamson. He might have been trying to hit Dewan Jones,

who's racing on the underlap. And then I don't know that Ariola's back heel is meant to do anything but sort of extend the play. None of these are bad decisions. It just still doesn't quite have, like the tidy intentionality that you want to build towards. I'm not even trying to be critical. This is,

you know, good attacking instincts by four different players on the play that results in Paxton Ererson being alone with a shot. So Paxton not bringing his finishing boots to the game. Craig just flinches when I say that. It's a good block. I mean, this one's a good block, right? Yeah.

ensuing counter, I thought Duane Jones does very well to stand up a Mosquera in like 1 v1 in tons of space. Dude, so go ahead, yeah. This was on the corner from the Arensen's shot that was blocked leads to a corner. And this counterattack from Columbia, and Paxton Arensen definitely establishing himself, definitely establishing his Arensen bona fides here because they get on on the break. and Aronson has the chance to just end the entire break, you know, 30 yards from Columbia's goal by just sort of hitting the trail leg of the Colombian player who's about to like hit the key pass to spring everything. And he like leaps over it.

He intentionally goes out of his way to avoid making contact here in a way that would have completely destroyed the counterattack. To earnest. So yeah, so it's a very honest, very, it felt exactly like the Brendan situation from the Iran match in the World Cup. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. you got to break up the counter break up the counter this is 2023 take a foul

take a yellow if you have to but foul better I feel like I was more impressed with Jones than most people last night now I know he wasn't like amazing in the attack or anything but

I thought it was very it was he was reassuringly good at defending and this this is one of those players where you're like this is the nice work from Jones yeah

yep yeah I thought was okay. You know, you could say that Jones like forced Muscarra into a bad pass but it was more just like Muscarra got Jones running full speed

and actually did his little pullback and Jones kept going a little bit, not totally out of the play, but Moscarat definitely got himself some space to make a decision here. He just didn't execute well enough. I'm not, I don't know, I'm getting too deep into this one play by Jones. I thought Jones was fine. I don't think

there was any play where he got beat in. And there are some later really good examples of him. shutting down Columbia attacks. Hoppy gets the ball on the left sideline in the 16th minute tries to mega guy to nowhere. And he got a little bit of retaliation from Yomar Velazquez, I thought, with like a little piece of skill to pass it out wide to, who was it? Was it Cucho?

What do you call that skill where you like, where you kind of bang it off one foot and then pass it? I don't know, but it's, I love retaliation in the form of sauce. Like when watching Hoppy try to do something that doesn't come off and then immediately being like, this is how you do things. Yeah. It felt that way. That was solid.

And that's what, like, that makes a January game get a little bit more interesting. It felt like there was good intensity at that point in the game and solid entertainment. I saw, I don't, you know, it's hard to judge these things, but Stu Holden was in the stadium and said on Twitter that it was 90% Columbia fans. So it was a, you know, kind of an away game. I mean, 90% is an overwhelming number like that. I'm pretty dubious of that.

I'm a little dubious of it, too. Yeah, I'm a little dubious of it too. But I think it's fair to say it was majority Colombian support. Well, can't schedule games in Los Angeles anymore. Well, I'm not saying anything about that. Just saying, this is what we got 17th minute

a chance for Columbia a little messy from our back four on a ball over the top Zimmerman tries to volley I don't know like try to overhead volley it and he kind of mishits it it squibs across the middle of

Zone 14 Tolkien can't get there to cover and Yomar Velasquez gets into the box touches it passable Tolkien gets in the box and scuffs his shot wide another example of Columbia and not having the cutting edge that, you know, some teams in the world do have.

Yeah, and this was another, I think another Zimmer mistake. He kind of just settles the ball at the top of the box while almost doing like a bicycle. So he's on the ground now with the ball at the top of the box. Yeah. He can't make a play. Zimmerman is kind of just safe from criticism here because this isn't the game that you need to evaluate Zimmerman on. You already have a ton of information on Zimmerman and more games. games.

So he's a little bit sort of just free rolling through this, through this match. I mean, if you've been a train wreck, that might have been something. But like these little nickel and dime things probably aren't going to affect his standing too much. Right. Well, 19th minute, somebody who's standing, I think, is, was in question. It's Pax and Erringson. Giveaway at the 18 minute mark that results in a curler from the top of the box from

Columbia. And then 40 seconds later, another giveaway. and Cucho has a shot blocked by Zimmerman. And as Bob Morocco said on the Discord, and I quote, every time Paxton turns on the ball and doesn't think he's going to be immediately under pressure is a level of optimism I cannot relate to,

end quote. Yeah, man, I thought Paxton was rough. So I feel like people were kind of excited about it, and he has that very busy optics to him that I think a lot of people appreciate. but sometimes it's just a mirage. And in this game, the kids, the kids of 2003, right? He's a U-20.

So I'm not saying anything about what the future holds. But I thought he was pretty bad in this game. I thought the giveaways were just constant. And the one thing we don't want from our center midfielder's in our setup is these kinds of giveaways where he just doesn't seem to have a plan and just gets the ball, does a bunch of happy dancing feet, until he gets muscled off of it. And now the other team's going the other way.

Right. Yeah, he, I think that's a good way to put it. 22nd minute, Tolkien gets bodied, and it's a couple half chances for Columbia, one on a fizzed ball across that gets mishit from the penalty marker and then a weak effort from distance right at Johnson. Yeah, this was Williamson's worst moment, too, is this ball gets kind of cleared out after the fizzed ball across.

Williamson goes out to meet it, and he just gets completely dusted by a Colombian player at the corner of the box, and that's how they end up. with kind of just a wide open shot from that range. Nice entry passes from Zimmerman to Areola in the 23rd minute, and then in the 24th. He plays one to Hoppe in the pocket, and Hoppe just takes a poor touch.

But did you notice a few other Zimmerman passes, entry passes that you liked? Yeah, I mean, I think that that's his game, right? And we didn't see it too much in the World Cup, so we know that it's not going to necessarily translate into the higher levels, but in these games, lower intensity, lower level of competition, Zimmerman is capable of hitting them, which is useful at the very least for giving our attacking players better reps in these games. Okay, so do you want to take the next few timeline items?

Sure, I think right around the 28th minute, Columbia get a little loose with it, and with their fullbacks and Paul Aureole just takes it straight off a guy's foot on the right side line. drives upfield 3B2. It's a little bit slow developing and ariola just gets run down by the same guy he took the ball from. He gets fouled like the guy slides in as all areola is releasing

it. A ref, let's play continue but at that point it's sort of a 3V4 and it kind of just fizzles out at Hoppe's feet. No, that's not right. I'm sorry. I'll clean that up. Hoppe plays it into Paxton Aronson. And then Hoppe continues his run.

Paxton kind of plays the ball towards where Hoppe and Ferreira are rather than where Hoppy is going and it just kind of pinballs until it's no longer a threat. Okay. There's a few other things. Another giveaway in the 31st minute from Aronson. We get a chance in the 32nd minute where Zimmerman wins the ball in the second circle. This is actually a really good chance.

I apologize for underselling it with my tone of voice. Zimmerman wins the ball in the center circle and then finds Jesus Ferreira's feet. Jesus turns and plays a perfectly measured through ball to Hoppy. And Hoppe's in on goal and he hits it kind of softly right at the keeper with his left foot. Yeah, this was Ferreira's best contribution to the game.

He was pretty quiet, not a lot that he was doing. And yes, I mean, there isn't really more to say than that great. execution to get free, great execution to find him, and just poor execution on the vital last touch. All right, that was, that's it. We'll see you. That was it for the interesting attacking moments, I think, wasn't it? There are a couple of Kellanagostas set pieces lately.

Oh yeah, at the very end. But yeah, man, it's, there wasn't a lot. There was a, there was some decent ways to like find, find people into the attacking. but almost, yeah, just almost nothing. We just don't have a lot of good attacking players in this game. I wouldn't have been able to imagine myself saying this a week ago, but I wish I had gotten to see Kate Cowell come in the game. You know what?

I don't know why I'm going to take now to do this, but like I kind of wish we would have seen Paxton Aronson in one of those attacking roles. I don't think he would have been like a huge game changer, but I think he was really miscast as a center midfielder for what we do. And so he ended up, I thought, looking really bad. when he might have had a better effect and been able to play more to his strengths as a more free attacking guy. So, yeah, I know we talked about this game being, getting pretty physical, seemed

pretty intense. And it was, I do think that there was very much like a trend of who was winning those battles and who wasn't. That left side of triangle for us of Tolkien, Aronson, and Hoppe is like my pitch-controlled nightmare. I feel like they were constantly taking naive angles, naive approaches, and then just sort of bouncing off of Colombian players in ways that made them pretty ineffective. You know, they made up for it a little bit, especially Paxton, by volume of approaches and pressures.

But man, they just looked small. They looked like they played small in this game. I thought, yeah, I thought Tolkien kind of grew into the game a little bit in that respect. And he had some, like, he has some weird ways of winning challenges that, like, he throws his whole body at it and gets like the outside of his right foot on the ball and sends it away. But yeah, I was disappointed in how, um, how man handled he was on the night as well. Yeah, because he's one that we're hoping can really like step in maybe right away into a backup

spot for the senior team. And there was nothing in this game where I was like, yes, that would be his spot for a bit, at least for the next couple of camps. That's why, I guess maybe that's why I'm so, uh, high on, high on is a little strong, but why I'm encouraged at Jones's performance because he didn't get manhandled. Yeah, no ragdalling over on that side. Half time.

It happened. Sonora. Sonora on for Williamson. Somebody was making fun of me for calling him Senora, which is not what he is. It's Sonora. There's some more nice line-breaking passes from Zimmerman. Yeah, nice chance early where Zimmerman breaks the lines again to Ariola.

He found him in that pocket a lot. And then Ariola missed a chance right away to combine with Sonora, who, Signora is like the total opposite of an Aronson. Like he has very calm feet. He seems pretty efficient with getting the ball and moving it. So it's not like he's slow. He just doesn't have anywhere near the frenetic appearance of the Aronson boys. Yeah.

I'm a little disappointed that we didn't. get to see Sonora in a different sort of setting, you know? Like maybe he's not, maybe he's not going to be a solution for us in any way ever. But it would have been fun to see him like playing with better players. Yeah, and one of the things is it could be tough to, because if he's only going to be available from going on from here on out for full team camps, it's going to be hard, it's just hard for him to break in. We got Luca Delatore doing things.

You know, Taylor Booth is probably going to be a guy we got to see in camp pretty soon. So the spots that Sonora is fighting for are going to be really hard to secure. Yeah. Yeah. Although, but I agree he looks efficient and calm on the ball and he does some nice things here and there. You want to talk about Paxton-Arensen's best moment of the game? Yeah. I just clocked this 153rd minute.

It's, of course, not surprisingly, it's a transition moment. Signora, Harry's Columbia into a giveaway. They passed it directly to Paxton Aronson. This was like the time I saw him have a real idea quickly. And so it came into his feet and he very quickly played it vertically disguised ball to Paul Ariola to attack right away before Columbia can regroup. Ariola gives it away almost instantly. But it was like a good moment from Paxton because I kept seeing people say he's at least trying things. And I didn't really see him trying that many things before this moment.

I just saw him again sort of be on the ball looking busy on the ball, but never. really having like a clear plan of what he was going to do once he was done dancing. And so this was just like a good incisive instant read and execution that I was like, okay, there's something. So that was something to work with. Okay. All right. Well, let's see what happens at Antrock Frankfurt and, you know, with the U20s.

Yeah, exactly. He's got a lot of time. Yep. All right. I know I promised we'd move along, but the thing that actually, And what made me think of what Paxton's play made me think of most was Geo Raina and what a pitch control monster he is. Like, Geo is only about nine months older than Paxton. And remember Geo started three years ago for Dortmund and like was instantly like this huge man on the field, even at 17.

So that's like, it just helps to remind me what an outlier Geo Raina is. Man, it's crazy to think about You just can't take the ball from Gio Right And you just can't help but take the ball from Paxton I've accidentally taken the ball from Paxton Aaronson again I don't I'm not again

I don't want this to be like dumping on Paxton He's a U-20 He's got time It's no crime to not be Gio Rainer for the U.S. men's national team Yeah Another big moment I thought was a quick third throw in the 59th minute.

You know, you can feel free to go back and mention anything you want to mention from before this, but I'm going to go right to the 59th minute. A quick throw from Jones to Areola, and Areola is going up the right touchline, and he cuts a very nice ball across to Jesus' feet, and Jesus dribbles the guy, so gets past him a little bit, and then just can't quite get his feet right to have a hit, gets crowded it off the ball. Yeah, either didn't know the second defender was coming or just couldn't get his body to intervene to keep that second defender who's trailing back on the play.

Yeah, just sort of shepherded away from him pretty simply. But it looked like something was on, but Hesus didn't make it happen quick enough. He'll make some stuff happen on Snapchat later in the night, later in the night, though. They were doing the wave at Dignity Health Park. I love the wave. Vasquez comes on for for real. Sarah Sabi comes on for Areola.

That's Emmanuel Sabi. First cap for him, right? Performance. What? Yeah. First cap for Sabi. I mean,

it was, it was nothing, but it wasn't, he didn't do a lot of good things. But you're not really expecting anything from Manuel Sabi in this camp. This is very much like a quintessential, uh, one off call up,

I think. It looked like a one off call up. And it is cool, though, for him to get that. cap. Jalen Neal comes on for Zimmerman in the 70th minute. You know, I think there's stuff we could talk about, but mostly Acosta hit two good set pieces late. And, you know, we didn't, we didn't quite get him. Vasquez just missed with his

outstretched right boot. Vasquez just missed with his outstretched right boot. One of the balls from Acosta. I forget what happened on the other one. Oh, in the 85th minute, a very good free kick that Vasquez glances over with his head. So a header chance and a chance with his foot couldn't quite get either one right. Both would have been a really nice goal. So I'm not dogging on Vasquez. Yeah, and probably what I would say is for both those chances, I'd rather be Vasquez and

Ferreira for that kind of a chance on both occasions. for talking set pieces. So what now? We got this March camp coming up? So for me, like Zendayaas. Brings Zendayaas into March. He could literally be the only carryover and I would be fine with that. I think I want him there because he looks like the kind of player

whose impact is most felt with better players around him. And then there's also the dual national element where I do think it would just be good to keep him close. keep him in the fold to help integrate him. And other than that, like, no real urgency for any of the other guys to be there. There are a few who, you know, especially the vets, Acosta Zimmerman, might well still have a part to play in a March camp. But otherwise, no, no one really demanding a spot, huh? No.

And, you know, Acosta, he did have those good set pieces at the end. He had some good moments throughout the game. He had some plenty of bad moments, too, I thought. but that's just kind of that's kind of who he is Yeah always has been And then you add on that he's well out of season Yeah

Two months removed for the World Cup I'm generally encouraged By what I saw from Jalen Neal I know he had a couple really bad moments in the first game But He's also a 2003 A young guy Still hasn't played any professional

Any professional minutes So I think The outlook for him is bright, I think. But yeah, and again, he's got the U-20s ahead of him. There's no way that, you know, for this next camp coming up, that you'd expect J. O'Neal to be called up in place of a Mark McKenzie or in place of a Chris Richards or Cameron Carter Bickers. The other guy, like, if Baskas is on the March camp, that'd be great.

I would like that. But I'm not going to be like, Baskis must be there for this March window. Right. I'm not going to say that either. Juan Jones, yeah, quite a few guys who would be fine, but really it's just like, let's get Zendayaas in here with whichever group you bring in for March. And, you know, Cade Cowell gave us a glimpse of a high-quality professional winger. But if you're, if you're playing 4D chess like I am, a world-class wingback or fullback. He does need to learn how to defend, I think.

Well, and again, March, depending on how full of a strength we bring for those March Nations League games against El Salvador at home, Grenada away. And I think Grenada is first. You're looking at, you know, K. Cowell would be competing against Raina and Wea and Pulisic and Zendaias if he's coming. And Paredes and Georgie and Malik and like all these guys, Brendan Aronson. So there's, yeah. Yeah, no urgency whatsoever for Kate Cowell. he's got MLS that he can start working towards and he can really maybe show off in the U20 World Cup.

Yep, plenty of time for him. He shouldn't be in the March camp. I agree. All right. The link for the Patreon is in the show notes. I think we're going to have a fun show tomorrow. Come join us. Thanks, Greg.

Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.