Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #368: WoSo Wednesday + USWNT v Japan recap

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Vince, Tara and Belz debrief about Nashville, discuss the Crystal Dunn profile in GQ, recap the 1-0 win over Japan with special attention on the midfield and the fullbacks, and Alex Morgan, and look briefly ahead to Brazil tonight.----Emma Carmichael's profile of Crystal Dunn: https://www.gq.com/story/crystal-dunn-profile----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes once a week, plus access to the Discord and 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. It's Wosso Wednesday, and Greg Velasquez's wagon train is still on its way back to Iowa, so we still got to recap the 1-0 win over Japan on Sunday. Tara, Vince, how are you? I'm so well. I'm excited to talk. I'm excited for the Brazil game. That's how I am.

How are you? Very well. Vince, how are you? I'm old. That's what I am. I'm old. So whenever I do like a little A little trip like a day trip up to Nashville or something

It takes me like three days To really get all the way back You know what I'm saying So give me one more day I'm on the road to recovery You sound pretty good I mean you've been productive for the scuff podcast since Sunday Yeah yeah

So that's the thing, bells You know We're running you into the ground Exactly Exactly Sorry bro Well, how was Nashville? How did you guys enjoy the game?

The game was cool. It's different, right? Definitely different. Your comments about the, you know, the differences between the type of people, the types of people at the game definitely held up. It's something that I guess I have a little experience with with the differences between like a Lou City and like a racing Louisville game. It's kind of along those lines, even more pronounced, I guess.

Yes. Like my, when I first got to my seat in the stadium, it was like an entirely empty row. So I'm like, okay. And then 20 minutes into the game, maybe, this family comes. And it's like nine kids and one adult that just take up the whole rest of the eye. I don't know. Like, like, shout out the kids, of course. But there were just a lot of them.

They were just a lot of them. Yeah. Like the last men's national team game I went to, I got super high and wanted to hit on anything with the pause. The last women's national team game I went to, I was like incredibly stressed out. I wanted to make sure that every little girl saw that you can be strong and brave and still have fun and look at all the players. And it's just two different worlds, man. I'm glad you guys experienced it though. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's not as fun. I'll tell you that. It's not as fun when you have your kids there.

I mean, that's going to be the case. Definitely. That's definitely a thing. I think that women's national team games, and we'll get to much more, like, actual topics later. But I think women's national team games are a great opportunity for people who love soccer. The tickets are cheap. the stadiums aren't going to be filled to it like it's not going to be claustrophobic at all because it's not going to be that crowded and they're just like more accessible to get to and you can bring a bunch of kids and it's it's a good opportunity but yeah they're definitely not like a place to party so to speak well i don't know i mean you could you kind of you can party there right you just Nobody's going to stop you.

Yeah, in theory, I guess. But I don't know, man. A lot of kids, a lot of preteens, teens, college age. I agree with what you're saying, though, Tara, about it's just a nice place to, if you enjoy soccer, to see it. Because it was beautiful. You know, Geotis Park is beautiful.

The quality, I mean, it was not a fantastic performance from the U.S., but, you know, these are still. incredible athletes out there. And there's a lot of beauty, even in a kind of a, I think for most viewers, kind of a boring game. Yeah.

I loved it. So there's one more thing about the, just everything in general. Like, I, like, I bought tickets on the, on, like, the lower level, right? Like, on purpose. Because in my experience

in Middensational Team games, you know what I'm saying? If you're on that lower level and not upstairs, like, everyone stands up. down there. So I was expecting people to stand up and they, they, they, they, they, they were not standing up. No. And, and, and, and, and only when there was, like, a chance that did everyone stand up. Like, I was, so not much standing up. Not, not much. Not much. Not much standing up.

And I remember, like, like, I was on the end that we scored the goal on. Bels, I think you were too, right? Yep. Like, I, I actually remember somebody, like, behind me was just like, yeah, there's not a lot of action going on down here. I was like, I was like, sure is not man so every time like we came down towards us the end it looked like something promising was going to go on i had to hurry up and grab eden and pick her up because she's like you know too short to see when everyone stands up but uh yeah did she like the goal did she get to scream i don't know if she screamed but you she she does like the the pageantry and stuff yeah she she did have fun like overall um after it it was almost certain disaster

to start off the day. I was 30 miles outside of Louisville. My car broke down. I had to figure out what to do with that. But I figured it out. I figured it out. I ended up driving the car back to Louisville and switching cars and then making it to Nashville. But it put me at Nashville like 1 p.m.

When I was supposed to be there at like 11. It was unfortunate. You still got to the tailgate before Greg did. Which is an incredible feat, an incredible feat. an incredible feat in and of itself. I wish I had, I wish I got to spend more time of the tailgate, you know. Bell's caused me a politician because I enjoy,

you know, meeting people talking to people, people listen, podcasts. Huh? Shaking hands. Shaking hands, you know what I'm saying? Kissing babies. That's Vince. Hey, I'm a charming man.

What can I say? But, uh, yeah, just, like, shout out to everybody that came through. Yes. Shout out to everybody I met at the tailgate. You know what I'm saying? It was fun. Yeah. It was great.

Misty Tara, maybe next time. Yeah, maybe next time. It sounds fun. Oh, so I will say that the silver lining, I think, and maybe, like, the game didn't get eaten. But I think, like, with the tailgate and everyone that was playing with Eden and everyone, like, her just being able to have fun with people and play a little soccer. and just, I don't know, run around and stuff. So I think, I think we got her on the train here. Because really the only sports you really like so far is baseball.

That is really silly. I wasn't expecting baseball. And she's a gymnastics kid too. She likes that too. But yeah. So I think we got some hooks in her a little bit. So we'll see. Yeah, the more community you build, I mean, it's going to be more and more fun each game, hopefully.

Yeah, that was maybe my favorite thing about the weekend was my daughter, Mave, your daughter, Eden, and Billis' daughter, June, playing together out in that field by the tailgate. Oh, yeah. Great times. Yep. And if y'all, and if y'all seen the picture of my daughter waving the scuff flag, it's just beautiful. Elite. It is a really cute picture. I want to talk a little bit about Crystal Dunn's GQ profile.

It speaks on a lot of different topics from pregnancy to motherhood to what has happened in Portland. You know, it's been a hot mess there. To the NWSL championship, to her time and her position with the national team. And it's really interesting. It's got some good pictures. But I want to read a bit of a question. quote here. It's a longer one, so bear with me. The interviewer asks her if the requirement to be all the things at once as a player has ever felt like a burden, has it ever felt like a burden?

And Crystal says, yeah. And then she gets a little choked up and she says, it's been a massive burden on me to switch who I am given the team that I play for. And it's something that that I only go through. It's really hard to speak about, and then it cuts in because she starts crying, which is heartbreaking and makes me want to, you know, cry myself. But after a moment she collects herself and she says, I think it's hard because I'm the only one who has to do it, she said, I step into camp and I feel like I lose part of myself. I no longer get to be Crystal who scores goals, assists, is this attacking person?

player, I step into an environment where I have to be a world class in a position that I don't think is my best position. But I've owned it. I've made it my own. And I've tried to create it in the most authentic way. But I don't love it. I love playing and I love competing. So that brings me up to the level that I need to be at. But it is really hard when I look around and I'm like, well, no one else has to do this. I'm the only one who does. not stay put in one position and always has to change given what my coach thinks of me. And it just really struck me because that was, I mean, like, already pretty brave to say she's speaking her truth, which is always a good thing. But it made me sad. What did you guys think

of it? Vince, you go first, unless you want me to. Oh, Bill's, you got it. I think it's cool that she is speaking her mind here. I like that. that. And I think she's doing it in a way that doesn't seem acrimonious, you know. It's just her saying how she feels about it. And I think that's great. You also get a clear picture from, I thought, from the article of all the ways she's really been, she's really thoroughly prepared herself to get back with the national team, you know, throughout pregnancy and childbirth and everything. She was always, you know, she was always around the team and working to be to be back as soon as she possibly could. The thing about her playing fullback, which I can understand her frustration,

and I'm glad she's speaking about it, is that for me, Dunn and Fox are the best fullback pairing we have right now. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a dilemma. Like, I can see why she's frustrated. I think I would probably play her at fullback right now if everybody was healthy. So. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely conflicting. I, with you, they're the best pairing we have right now. But Vladka was actually asked about it on the pre-match press conference before the game against Japan. So that was on Saturday.

And he said, obviously, she's a world-class player, but she has a choice too. She can compete as a midfielder, but she has to compete with Rose Lovell and Lindsay Heran and Catarina Macario when she comes in as well, right? So if she doesn't feel comfortable playing left back or she doesn't want to be left back, nobody is forced to play in any position. As a left back, she's world class in probably one of the best left backs in the world. As a midfielder, she has pretty stiff competition at that position. So everybody has a choice and then we make the decisions. So he sounds,

you know. Okay. Well, number one, I don't think this, this, quote, really tracks. But because of,

you know, if you've been following the women's national team, you know that, like, this has been a running joke with Crystal, like,

almost like begging Black Cole, like, yo, you put me in the midfield today? Can you put me in the midfield

this camp? Type thing. And so, like, he's talking tough to the press you know what I'm saying he's talking he's talking real tough talking real greasy to the press but I feel like he has not said this to Crystal when Crystal has brought this issue up to him multiple times

ever since he you know first came on the job and I don't know I don't like it I don't like it because he's acting like you know she wants to do it You know what I'm saying? The door's open, blah, blah, blah, but it's clearly not. Yeah. It clearly is not. So watch a mouth, Vlaco.

Like, I felt really conflicted reading it because I go from Crystal's GQ spread. And I was, like, upset for her. And then I, it's, Vladko's statement is, like, kind of a joke. It doesn't make that much sense. And then everything gets wiped out of my mind because we get a hint at where he sees cats. coming back at and I'm immediately intrigued again because I think once we get into like the lineups and everything that happened at the game versus Japan if what we were trying to do in the midfield is any indication of where he actually sees cat coming back as like that Ashley

Sanchez role where she was basically equal to Alex Morgan if not how at times. I'm intrigued. Again, I'm right back. I'm into it one more time. Yeah. I think, you know, so Greg talked about this in the recap of the Canada game, how he would like to see Cat as the paired with Lavel.

I guess that's, we're going to see it. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure it's paired with Lavel because I think he's deeply obsessed with Lindsay Hurran, but... Lindsay Iran's not coming off the field, though. No, this is her team. But if we get Kat in a position to be that attacking and that open and that creative, oh, God, like, the options are limitless. He might try Horan at the 6th, though.

He's obsessed with trying non-6s there, so I wouldn't doubt it. Yo, yeah, well, since you brought it up, Sarah, we really do got to talk about this because the coffee exile is one of the weirdest things I've seen in sports. To be completely honest, you know, I mean, we talked about my position on Sam Coffee in previous episodes. But, you know, we're what, four months away from the World Cup. It's time to get serious. And like, like how? How?

I want to believe. So what has she done to be? just sent away like this. It's a mystery to me. Nobody gets sent away but Sam coffee. It's part of the problem. We keep people forever, but not same coffee. Just thoroughly dismissed.

I think it's haunting. I am deeply troubled by it. Like, we want to try everybody at the six, except for the natural six that we have in the past. We don't have her now, apparently. but a natural six who just won the NWSL title she did at the six she the only reason she wasn't rookie of the year is because Naomi Germa like what a good problem to have she had that good of a season and yeah we go so we're going to get a black co press conference where he's like you know if if Sam wants to play the six it's it's open to her she has to compete with taylor cornyack

Christine Mewis. I really want to believe that he's going to have a Greg Burhalter-esque awakening and we're just being silly and then we get our crap together at the very last minute. But I'm really worried about it. I think she could be the answer to lots and lots of our problems. And like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm concerned. I've always, I mean, I've been a coffee supporter all along, and maybe pragmatism will come for Laco, just like it did for Greg at the 11th hour.

I want to say shout out to Emma Carmichael, who wrote that piece on interview done over several months and wrote the piece. It's a very good piece. She's, by the way, she's the former editor of Jezebel who was on the stand. This is a total, total side note, but was on the stand during the Holkogen sex trial for a long time, you know, answering lawyers questions. That's awesome. Yeah. Do you think it's like, Vince, what do you think of Don, like, would you play Dunn at Fullback? Or would you say, let's roll with Fox and Huerta?

we need done in the midfield. You know what? So I've never been the biggest word to guy. Like, I don't know. I just felt like I needed to see some more. And then after this last performance, we probably have to play

Crystal Dunn in full back. I think. There's no there's no other candidates really jumping out at me. If I try to think, about our pool here. So, yes, I think so. I think you got to play football bike.

The thing is, like, I've agreed with you guys the whole time. It's done Fox as our starters. But if Emily can be Crystal's backup on the left side and perfectly fine going a full 90 on the right side, Greg said this in the Canada recap. Like that opens us up to save a spot since our roster's only going to be 23. We could have Huerta be off the bench, which I'm fine with. Like I like Huerta, but if the choices between Crystal Dunn or Emily Fox, she's the third choice every time, every day.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a good. I hope those, I mean, those three fullbacks make a lot of sense, and it does open up space for, you know, maybe a Sam coffee to make the roster. I don't know. It all comes back to how ridiculous it is that we only have 23. Like, I think when I really try and convince myself of, like, to feel good about what we're doing leading up to the World Cup, I think a lot of these odd choices.

were tests to shave down the roster. Like, I think Taylor in New Zealand as the six was a test to see if she could bring value as a defensive midfielder. I think Christie against Japan was a test to see if she could bring value as like playing dual positions as a midfielder. And I'm not sure either of them passed. but I think all of this is just shaving down the roster. All right. So we're going to shave it down. They're going to bring Sam coffee back.

It's the only explanation I have. I've made all of this up, but I do believe it now. Well, it is roster shaving time for sure. It doesn't seem like it's hard to see a path for coffee to come back unless Vlako reverses himself, basically. Which you mean. Yeah. Yeah. A couple other things before we get to the USA Japan recap. The U23s played two friendlies against France in France.

One of them was televised on YouTube. The other was behind closed doors. We won the first one, 2-0, with goals from Michelle Cooper and Alyssa Thompson. Some disagreement between you and me, Tara, on how divine Cooper's goal was? Yeah, I'm like deep, I'm like actually kind of worried about you. Like, I'm here to support you. He's a Cooper hater for sure.

I can be a friend in times of need, but like you have a young up-and-coming attacker who's so promising and just had an amazing final season at Duke and you don't want to put all your eggs in this basket. She's amazing. Well, I'm just, I'll, my eggs may go in that basket, but, uh, this goal, it was deflected. It was, it was. She was in a great position, though. It's strong hit.

I think Michelle Cooper is in for a hell of a season, her first, her first season with Kansas City. And I really want both of you to get on board because I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Uh, I'm, I'm, so I'm on board. Yeah. And we're going to have a blast. The, so, so Michelle also had like a left-footed, a left-footed shot from like the top of the box that went off the crossbar too, which was, which was very nice. Yeah, yeah, this was, we're talking about the first game. That was the one that was on YouTube.

I can read the starting lineup off real quick. It's stacked. It was pretty nice. left wing we had Alexis Pansdra who's just been drafted by Casey Currant had me official

starting a striker right wing was Alyssa Thompson left midfield was Hannah Bbar okay six Brianna Pinto right midfield

Corbent Albert left back Kate Weisner who apparently is a Penn State Penn State player who's on our Instagram she loves what was it

God iced coffee and footie in that order which Okay You're going to have to pick one of those two And take a like footy can't be third You know what I'm saying For me If I'm a GM I'm looking at you

You slide down my draft board for sure Anyway left Left centerback was Lily Real Right centerback Lauren Flynn right back Lainey Rouse who was with the U-20s

University of Virginia right back who I personally am very excited about but she's fun to watch yes but this was a it was a pretty fun game to watch the replay should still be up on the

on the France Federation YouTube page if you want to check it out but Corby and Albert was getting busy in that first goal that Alyssa Thompson scored. There's a nice layout for me, official. Official created that whole thing, I thought. Yeah.

Anyway, continue, Vince. But how fast Alyssa Thompson was to get on the end of that ball? I was so excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alyssa speed is truly a game changer and something that I think is, like, even when we see it in the NWSL is something that's going to be like elite in something that jumped off the screen every time you watch Angel City. Oh, also the keeper was Lauren Kozo, which I don't care much about keepers, but I had to get that in there.

But yeah, it was a good performance. Everybody looked good, you know. France, of course, no slouch. No, no. But to see Alyssa's speed in that first game and then to know she got the only goal in the second game, it, of course, made me really excited. but watching the senior team play against Japan. And I thought June Endo was a blast to watch. And knowing that she and Alyssa are going to team up next season or this season for Angel City,

I think that's going to be a really promising connection. Because we don't know when Sydney Leroux or Kristen Press are coming back. So it's really going to be June and Alyssa up top. Fair, fair. And then, yeah, so we won the, we drew the second game, the one that was behind closed doors. Right. Which, you know, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there to hear it or whatever, did it happen? Yeah, I don't think, yeah.

This one was on YouTube and we won. It was fun to watch too. But, I mean, I guess, overall point, a lot of talent. I was also impressed. I haven't watched a ton of Brianna Pinto and her two years as a pro. But I was impressed by her. Me too.

Just as a six has the ability to spray balls all over the pitch, you know, defensively sound. I mean, if we're doing this carousel of sixes, you know. Bracko. Come on down, you know what I'm saying? You know, the thing about Thompson's speed, you know, Swanson has a similar, I mean, maybe not quite as elite, but similar speed.

And, you know, Sophia Smith is quite fast as well. And I know we scored our one goal against Japan with, you know, a ball in behind for Swanson that she ran on to. But it doesn't seem like we utilize that dynamism very much. Maybe it's just because Sanchez was like a drunken sailor in there on Sunday and just couldn't like connect a pass but I wish there was more that one time when well I don't know I mean we we tried to

you know I guess Mal was offside three times which which the very first one she was not offside like VAR definitely would overturn that like for sure like you can tell because it because the

the offside line like I guess you know how the grass is different colors Yeah. And that can help you with that. Well, the defender's foot was on the dark part of the grass, and Mal was in the light part. Like, she was clearly on side. But, but, yeah, we did try to go over the top a little bit, you know.

And then also, I think that's one of the problems with Alex Morgan is that, you know, sometimes these hopeful balls that we play shouldn't be like a straight giveaway to the other team. like if we had a more dynamic center forward maybe we could make something out of that but a lot of times you know like Alex is she's like a nothing in the air you know she doesn't have the speed that she used to because of course she you know she was a she was a blazer at one point but uh yeah that those things turned from like 50 50s into 100 zeros most of the time and well that's a little harsh I mean she's not nothing in there And she did make an outstanding play for the goal. I mean, that was world-class what she did in that moment. Yeah, it was nobody on her back. You know, just coming back to the ball beach. I mean.

Anyway, anyway. Three perfect touches. Yeah. Of course, of course. And then Lynn, which I have to say, Lynn kind of encouraged me in this match just because she does look, she looks like she's back to being extremely fast and an explosive. and she was able to use it a little bit. Well, we'll get to it in the rundown, but. Mewis played that dime for Rodman.

So that's something that Mewis brings to the six that we don't have from our other sixes. Not even Sam Coffey. Christy's got a great left foot. But I want to go back real quick to something Vince said. At the very beginning, when Mao was off sides three times in a row, did you, did you guys hear what Mal said about that? She spoke after the game. No.

The Black Co told her, go ahead to her. Yeah. So Melissa Ortiz asked her like, what was the lead up to your goal or something fluffy like that? And she said, well, I was off sides three times in a row and Vladko called me over and told me to stop being off sides. and then I stopped being off sides and I scored. He said, stop it. And she stopped it. And then we were all good.

Hey, that's a type of instruction that garners, you know, $3.50 a year. Yeah. Sounds like Mal is very coachable. Yeah. Which. He said to stop it, so I stopped it. Yeah.

Simple as that. And I do have to say that. Another one of those offsides was like Lindsay just playing her a ball when she was clearly offside. You know, just one of those things were like she had already made a run and the ball was, the ball was deflected out. And, you know, she hadn't gotten back outside yet. And Lindsay just played it to her. So, I mean, but, but anyway, but Lico took the opportunity to step in and do some coaching. And we saw the result of that.

So shout out to. Way to go, Vlad. Which, you know, she could have looked over. She didn't have to run all the way over to the technical area. She could have stayed on the side that she was on and looked over to a fan. And that fan, Mal, stay outside. And we could have got the same result. Yeah.

All right. Before we jump in on this, this is an ad-free podcast. So please consider joining us on Patreon. You get the Monday review every week. You get to express your support and goodwill for us. An ad-free podcast. Thanks to all our patrons and thanks to everybody who listens. The lineups.

USA 1. Go ahead. I'm so sorry. I want to just say being a fan of women's soccer can sometimes be a lonely world. So if you become a patron, you can join the Discord and meet a group of people who also enjoy watching women's soccer. Yeah. The lineups for the game are a Yaka. So for Japan, Ayaka Yamashita and goal. And then I guess sort of a 5-4-1,

although that makes it sound like they were very defensive and they were not. They were on the front foot. But anyway, the wingbacks were Risa Shimizu on the right side and Hina Sugita on the left side. And then three centerbacks would be Shiori, Miyaki, Saki, Kumagai, and Moeka Minami. And then the midfield band of four,

Aoba Fujino, number 20 was very dynamic. Ui Hasagawa, Fuka Nagano, and Mana Iwabuchi, who was also quite good. And then the striker, the number nine, was Rico Ueki. Good team, Japan. Very good, yeah. And the U.S. lineup was Casey Murphy and goal, so Alyssa Neher gets a little break. And then it's Sophia Huerta, Alana Cook, Naomi Germa and Emily Fox across the backline.

Christy Mewis gets her chance at the six at the six carousel and then Sanchez and Horan were the nines and then Lynn Williams at right wing Alex Moore they were the eights did I say nines yeah yeah Sanchez and Horan were the nine since Sanchez and heran Sanchez and Horan were the eights and then Williams Morgan and Swanson across the front line so yeah the big I think the big interesting thing here is Muis at the 6th, right? Yeah, it was another tryout. She played there during the summer during qualifying.

It wasn't great. She didn't get another look. So I think that tells us where we're at is... Where we're at is just desperately grasping at straws. I didn't think it worked so well. I like Christy Muis. Like I said, she's got a hell of a left foot, but I will. wasn't a fan.

But then I read I read a Tannenwald article about it and it made me second guess like everything I know. So what did you guys make of her? I don't know. She was okay.

You know, didn't do anything too crazy. Like I thought a lot of those those left for the balls that she did try to hit. usually did not make it to their target. But usually just in traditional build-out, she was okay. And then a lot of times, like, Lindsay Horan just took that off her plate anyway.

So I don't know. She was okay. Like no major gaps, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. She's just kind of a guy out there, you know? Yeah. The thing is she relied heavily on.

Naomi Germa from what I could see. And like she was passing back to Germa, like Germa was helping her out. If that was the instruction in some world, if they were told to do that, I would have loved to just see Germa get a try out there. I think it would have worked a lot better. Yeah, so what the Tannen Wall say in the article? It was, I'll link it. I'll link it for you guys.

But basically it was her trial and it was reliable and it gave good stats. And I was like, well, what the hell was he watching? Because I wasn't watching that game. My criticism mainly of Mewis from this game is she was a little too easy to play through. Yes. And she lost a lot of individual battles. So yeah, she hits that dime to Rodman. She does have a good left foot.

But more or less, that's the only. only like plus plus moment I remember on the ball from her to Vince's point. And then, you know, the combination of her, Sanchez and Iran in the midfield is just, it's not formidable. It's not, it's not. It's not. It's soft. But it's a, it's a good time to remind before we, before we really tear it apart, that

Japan team was good. And like they, they're, they're going to have a good run of things in the world. Cup. Like, I'm really excited about watching them. And I think that it was a really good challenge for us to not, like, I think versus Canada, we brought out the A team and I think we were really aggressive and we were playing it very seriously. I think versus Japan, we were trying some things out. And I thought that to do that against a side as good as Japan was. encouraging, even if it wasn't, you know, that fun of a game to watch. Does that make sense?

Yes. Do you think that's true, Vince, to understand the two games that way? Canada was the one we kind of went, went for it on, and this Japan game was more experimental, so... A one-zero win is gravy, basically. I don't know how experimental it was. Well, I guess with the six. but I don't know I don't know

like if Rose was healthy I assume Rose would have been planned and then at that point it's like a it's a first choice lineup except for the six well I think I think versus Canada we saw Trinity and versus Japan we saw Lynn I think that would have been

first choice second choice true true we had Casey Murphy instead of Alyssa I think that's first choice second choice yeah but did you know Melissa, Casey. I think done in Fox versus Fox and Huerta is first choice, second choice. Like there were five changes. It wasn't like we were just, you know.

Vince, what are you going to do? You just got absolutely your ass handed to you. No, no, she's right for sure. I mean, I'm just kidding about that. All right. Let's get to the timeline. You've got, you're on, you're on Lindsay Horan, watch, Vince. So that's going to take up most of the.

first bit of the game. I mean, just for a little context, we had six shots, two on target in the game. None of, outside of the goal, nothing that was really that threatening from us. Japan had quite a few more. I think they had 11 shots, and especially late in the game, they were really knocking on the door. But, yeah, Horan Watch. Let's start with that. Yeah, and so the whole reason I'm doing this is because I came out of watching that game.

in person and was and and I thought that Lindsay Hiram was asked in this match and and then you know when I talk to other people and watch the game on TV or whatnot they were like oh Lindsay Ram's pretty good so I just wanted to see I want to see what was going on and I guess we we can start here second minute um as a Naomi German clearance that that finds Lindsay uh basically kind of in the in the left back space almost essentially um Lindsey gets on the ball, a little dead leg, back hill to Emily that puts her in a little bit of space. And Emily does, Emily does. She carries it for a little bit. And then tries to play a little square return ball to Lindsay, where Lindsay would be in a decent pocket of space to go and get cooking, and maybe we can get off in transition there. But she's unable to get to it.

She's unable to get to it. I would say that she's unable to get to it because she can't open her stride up because of her lingering knee issues that, you know, have been well documented. But we can either agree or disagree. Agreed. Okay.

That's the thing with like, my big thing with Lindsay is like, well, like, can't we just sit her if she's hurt? I don't understand why we always play at least hurt players. Like Andy Sullivan, when she was hurt, Lindsay, and I will say, just to go ahead and get this out the way,

like upon rewatch, she was much better than I thought. Lindsay was. But still, like four months away from the World Cup, can we just give her a little bit of a rest and hopefully let that knee heel on up? The thing is, like you can see it with the current players, like you said, Andy, but this is exactly, what we did with Julie Earths and

in the U.S., we played them into the ground and may they rest in peace because now they are forever hurt. Yeah, I just don't get it. I just don't get it. But anyway, so next, third minute, we got Lindsay making a recovery, runs on an errant pass from the Japanese right winger. She shields the ball.

with their body in order to keep possession. She loves to lay down a shield, man. She loves it, loves it. Which is funny. Like somebody on Twitter called her, said she plays like Paul Pogbaugh a little bit, and I can definitely see that. Because Paul Pogbao will definitely just turn his body

like he's on the corner flag in the middle of the pitch. So, but for me, she shields the ball so long here that she misses the opportunity. to play either Emily Fox or Christy Mewis because we were doing Christy was kind of comfortable doing a little bit of I guess you can call it some triveting, you know what I'm saying? If Lindsay is back in that position with the ball,

Christy will take up an advanced position in front of Lindsay. And, you know, both passes were on, didn't play any because she's too busy, you know, jockeying with the Japanese challenger there. So, but then, you know, because Japan very, very organized, the Japanese challenger realizes, you know what, I just need to go ahead and get in shape. I'm not getting this ball.

Leaves, leaves Lindsay. So Lindsay decides to hit a crossfield ball to Sophia Huerta that's behind her and ball just goes out for a throw. Yeah, that's the, that's the Lindsay Aaron experience, the negative part of it. The negative part. There aren't too many more of these plays, but that was. You know, like first impressions with soccer matches

tend to stay with you and I think that was part of the reason why I came to the conclusion I did. But anyway, we'll get some more here later but go ahead.

Here's my thing. There's more about Huran, but let me say my piece about her. She's, she is really good, obviously. Like, nobody needs me to say that.

But she doesn't, like, so yesterday she got on the ball, she attempted 62 passes. So she's on the ball. ball constantly. And she loves, you know, she's on record how she loves this free role. She can kind of do whatever she wants. It's her team. She, she goes and gets the ball from the centerback. She gets up into the box. She's involved in everything. And it doesn't, like on Sunday,

it didn't really work. It didn't do anything, you know, didn't accomplish anything. Yeah. So what are we doing? Like, like, I get, I get that she likes to roll and Blako likes her in the role. But what are the results from her in this role? And I feel like she just too, she just doesn't release, she's not a rhythm player. She doesn't release the ball fast enough. She's so interested in jockeying and she can do it against anybody that it's almost more about the jockeying than about like progressing the ball. Right. And if she does progress the ball, it's like her taking the ball and like just linking up with somebody.

Like, you know, she'll just run over to somebody like, hey, you, let's play this one two real quick. and then I'm going to hit a, I'm trying, you know, like, thread a ball up to Alex Morgan or whatever. And she did that in this game pretty well, in my opinion. Like, she was able to find quite a few progressive passes that helped us get up the field a little bit. But there's just no rhythm within our team when we go about it like this. in my opinion. And you know who didn't get on the ball much, hardly at all, and maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but it was actually Sanchez.

Like she's on, she's, she attempted 14 passes on the game. So less than 25% of what Heran did. And if Horan's not able to, you know, if she's in this free role, but she can't get Sanchez involved, you know, that should be part of the, that should be part of the job requirement, I would think. Did you see, like, Lindsay Horan and Alex Morgan and Mal Mous Sonson a little bit as well, the three of them were, they would just scream at Ashley Sanchez during this game. Really? They were just yelling nonstop. And I was like.

Can you say the names of the yellers one more time? Lindsay Horan, Alex Morgan, and Mousonson, they were just yelling at Ashley Sanchez, like quite a few times throughout the. the game. And like, I know this, this was not Ashley Sanchez's game. She was straight up bad. But I also saw, like, the value of trying her there because I think it's pretty clear that's where Kat would be. That's where Rose would be. So I've been on record before. I think Ashley Sanchez is going to be a weapon off the bench. She's not a starter for the same. team. But, yeah, they were just yelling. They were just yelling at her. And I was like, okay, Lindsay, like, if maybe you could score and then warrant yelling a little bit or Alex or anybody else.

But I thought it was funny. Yeah. I mean, maybe she was, she looked like pretty uncomfortable out there. Maybe she was, maybe they were yelling a little too much. Well, so was it Canada? On the broadcast, when they said that Ashley was dealing with something? Yeah. She had. a toe injury that she's just playing through because that's what we do. And then Vladko also talked about Ashley Sanchez. And I thought this was really interesting. He said he was like kind of defending her a bit, which I appreciated. But he was like she's got 20 something caps for the national team.

And what she's going to look like with 20 something caps compared to 30 something caps is going to be very different. And I like that. Like it just was a good reminder that for a team that doesn't allow a lot of young people, we got to give her a little grace, I think. Consider it done. Well, since we're cycling in midfielders, you know what I'm saying? Savannah de Mello.

But anyway, let's keep it moving. Yep. Let's keep it moving. Okay, fifth minute, we get our first real forward momentum of the game. As I mentioned earlier, not a lot of forward momentum from us in general. but this one comes from some sloppy pinging around I think it's a little instructive cook almost gives it away in our box Germa intervenes at the last moment and it's basically a 50-50 challenge

just inside our box it ricochets out to Huerta who hoofs it forward we're just kind of in desperation mode Williams takes it down with her chest but her pass is errant it finds its way to Morgan fortuitously Morgan can't corral it. Then it goes, then Williams pokes it away from Nagano. So it's just like, errant pass, errant pass, errant pass, errant pass, errant pass. And then Swanson darts in to poke it to Sanchez in some space.

And Sanchez plays a relatively straightforward pass to Williams streaming down the middle. Williams slides it out wide for Watson, Swanson, who continues her run. And Swanson whips it across the six just out of the reach of Morgan, who is kind of three-quarters jogging into the box. So that's our first sort of forward thing. And I mentioned this on the Monday review. That was when that ball went to Sanchez, when Swanson poked it to Sanchez, that's when I jumped up out of my seat. That's when you said, let's go. And then my wife told me to sit down.

Next thing I got before we go back to the Horan watch, 10th minute, just not good enough from Sanchez. She gets a clever little first time pass from Huerta. in a pocket of space. I think Querta was actually trying to pass it to Williams, but she missed her, and then Sanchez is behind her. She receives it, turns. She's got the whole field in front of her right at the edge of the attacking third. She's got three attackers. It's basically a 4v3, and she just turns and wax it right at the keeper.

Yeah. That, to me, looks like somebody who's just not comfortable at the moment, you know. I will say she got a little more comfortable right before she got subbed off. She had a couple sequences that were good. Right, right. So that was definitely something I noticed at the match. Like her, I think like her best, her best little passes to play there. And then she just got yanked right after that.

And I was like, damn. Damn. But yeah, man, if I can go back to the fifth minute thing, just to, I don't know. You talk about us not leveraging our athleticism enough. this is this is probably a way to do it just just by booting balls and being extremely loose and just being able to just going full on Barnsley ball

yeah yeah just just be able to overwhelm Japan and just like every time Japan recovered the ball and thought you know maybe like ah here we go we're on the way there was just another player just in their face to poke the ball away but yeah I think when you see most of our moves into the second,

third in this match, it's more of that variety than anything like... Intricate. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Let's go through. You got a couple more Haran items here. Yep. Yep. So this play was cool to see in the stadium.

Lindsay Horan making a... It says Lindsay, Lindsey Huran making a running behind. And just to see her set up and actually open the stride up a little bit to set the run up, bend it, get the ball delivered from Alana Cook. But Lindsay wasn't able to bring it down. Tried, you know, tried the jumping, the jumping stab at it and just slid off her foot,

recovered by Japan. But it was, you know, some initiative that was kind of nice to see, to be honest. 14th minute We got a Lindsay Huran Cross body disguised left foot at pass To Alex Morgan Who Alex sends to Sophia Huerta Huerta sends the cross in

I think it ends up with Mao in the box Basically posted up on Japanese defender Lays it back to Lindsay and Zoe 14 Who does a little A little dancing on it But no real openings there So she just sends it out to to Lynn

and that's the well I don't know was it a cross what what do you all think was it a shot across I think it was a shot across

okay I think it was cross and Beasley did too he kept talking about that I'm in the show yeah but well

the cross ended up being extremely goal dangerous and the Japanese keeper actually had to make a save and hit that thing off the crossbar to prevent that from being 1-0 to the U.S. Like I will say, I mean, just another thing on Lindsay, you know, she is good at the,

so what's the Greg acronym? Sky afti? The sky afting, yes. Did a good job of it for the most part. Like once. we actually, we have to convince her to not hit the hero pass before entering the attack and third. You know what I'm saying? But once she gets an attack at third, she did good work.

She did good work. Okay. All right. I'm going to blow through the rest of the first half here until we get to the goal. But it's 17th minute, 18th minute, Aobah, Fujino has a shot blocked by Germa. Mewis and Horan are diced in fairly short order in the moments before the shot. Just want to clock that. 1825 mark we have the Huerta giveaway just a bad pass right across the middle of the field

picked off by Fujino and she finds Ueki and then it's over to Iwabachi and then she cuts in on Huerta for a good look on goal fortunately hits it right at Murphy the rebound falls to Fuka Nagano at the edge of the box and she elegantly I thought tried to volley it and it was just wide from the edge of the box. Yeah, and it's clear, like, right, from right out of the gate up until this minute, Owerta is just not playing regularly. She's out of season, whatever you want to call it. She's not looking her best.

Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not trying to be mean about Huerta, just for the record. You know? Noted. I'm, I'm, I'm, um, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, as the third fullback, definitely. Okay. 2140.

There's speculative shot from Iwabuchi from deep. Did I say Iwabachi earlier? I apologize. And that's not threatening. Oakey goes from distance a couple minutes later. Somewhat threatening, but Murphy had it covered, and I think it was wide of the near post. 26 minute, nice work from Haran to find Sanchez through the line.

So this is one of the few times the two of them connected. and Sanchez turns and sprays it to the corner for Mal. This time her pass is weighted properly, and Mal's cross is just overcooked. But at least we get a little something from Horan and Sanchez there. Yep. 27th minute is the first U.S. shot on target, not even really a shot. It's Morgan trying to flick it on with the back of her head, and I think it kind of bounces off her back and then settles gently at the goalkeeper's feet

after like sort of some Barnsley versus Swindon Town heading it back and forth action at the top of the box. And then 32nd minute Iwabuchi wins a cage match against Mewis at the top of our box squares it for Ueki for a shot that's blocked. I guess we've kind of discussed Mewis already

but anything else on her? No, I mean it she was fine. I hope we don't have to see it tonight though. Yeah, we haven't even mentioned that explicitly. The Brazil game is tonight. We play again. She believes, I mean, like, not to interrupt this whole darn thing, but she believes tournament this year has ruled.

Like, all the competition is grave, big. Brazil's good. Japan's good. Canada's good. Like, I think that this has been, like, wildly successful for a dumb, friendly tournament. And I'm really excited. about it. Yeah. Yeah. Four good teams. You don't see that often. I mean, I went, I went last year and I was like freezing in Texas against Iceland or some stupid thing. It just, it just wasn't

this. So good, good job you sucker. You got, you got some good competition. Yeah. It's nice. I have noticed that everyone else is starting their own, like she believes. Yeah. type deal. I know England has one going on right now. I think France, maybe has one going on. But anyway, hopefully it doesn't get, the market doesn't get too oversaturated so we can keep, you know, having a nice 14 pool there. We'll be fine. Hopefully.

When it comes to getting a nice 14 pool, I mean, 45th minute, we get our goal. And, you know, we criticize Alex Morgan a fair amount on this podcast, but I got to be honest, this was great from her. And then, of course, Swanson's mesmerizing quickness. But anyway, Cook wins a tackle just outside our box. You know, Japan's kind of parked in our defensive third for a little bit there. Cook wins a tackle, passes it back to Huerta. Huerta plays a good pass in the air to Morgan. Just kind of lofts it to her at midfield.

Morgan chests it down to her right, so it's a great first touch. And then she uses her knee, her right knee to touch it forward again on the half-folly. And then it's still bouncing, and she dinks it over the back line with her left foot for Swanson, sort of curling away from the defender. The ball is curling away from the defender who is trying to track Swanson. Swanson beats her to it. It's Shori Miyaki for the record. Takes a few touches, I think three, all good touches, and then slots.

it cool as you like far corner that was the difference in the game one zero USA wasn't always pretty but we got our goal that's all that matters yeah we had three more shots in the game a weak header from Sanchez a rapino speculation that was nowhere close and a pretty tame hit from Rodman after that muis dime yo uh I have to say like so so watching mal like run at our end and being kind of like I was kind of low down so I was kind of level with her and could see it pretty clearly but you know like just the clean the cleanliness of the of the three or four touches or whatever you could just there was no doubt there was no doubt that she was going to slot it like especially after the knee touch it was just like all right yeah she kind of juggled it at full speed there for two touches yeah yeah right right and it's just like okay if you it If you're doing that at this point, you know, when it comes time to finish and just knowing how she's been here lately, that thing was going to be in the back of the net. And it was. It was beautiful to see.

Also got to mention, I guess we haven't really got on here, but before this from Alex Morgan, for the most part, Alex Morgan coming back to the ball is, you know. It was a mess. It's a Russian roulette. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And to go back to your guys' one of your guys's favorite subjects, I would say even with that in mind, I think I back I back Alex Morgan to be better coming back to the ball than Michelle Cooper. I mean, that's just a crazy argument in the first part. She just saw Duke.

Alex Morgan is supposed to be the greatest of the greats. I know, but we don't see that often. Like, we had one great moment from Alex, and it was, it was awesome. But, like, she's supposed to be one of the best, and she doesn't act like it a lot. Fair enough. But if we're calling it Russian roulette with Morgan coming back to the ball, what is it with Cooper coming back to the ball, Russian roulette with, like, a grenade launcher? I would give, let's let Cooper have a season. Sure, fair.

And then we'll have it again. We'll go again. Yeah. bro, watch yourself. It's Black History Month. Cut that shit hell. Okay. Let's see.

I think that's it for the first half. And the second half was not as, well, there's not really, like I said, not much in attacking moments to talk about from the U.S. But Sonnet comes on for Huerta after the half. And at this moment, like I realized Dun must be on. restricted minutes. Vladko has said it countless times throughout this camp already. We have players on restricted minutes. And I've really appreciated how much grace Portland has given her since coming back from maternity leave. Like they've really taken their time. But the thing is, we just went through you know, a whole spiel about Crystal wanting to play in midfield. But Crystal's probably not going to

play in midfield. And with her and Fox on the field, I know I personally am feeling a lot more confident about our chances than with Fox and Huerta. And even less with Emily Sonnet playing out of position. Like, I know she's, she's beloved by the fan base, but I see her value on a roster because she could play fullback or she could play centerback. But, but should she play either? I don't think so. And I think we saw how dark it got once Sonic came on the field. I think it went pretty poorly.

Yeah. Said it got dark. Jesus. All right. You don't agree? I agree. I agree. But, yeah, I agree.

I agree with the part where you say, you know, Dunn and Fox are the, that you you feel really comfortable with those two at fullback. I feel like it's going to be really hard for other teams to score on us, you know? That backline of done Germa Cook Fox from left to right, or you could do it the other way? Yo, I mean, yes, yes. Like generally, yes, we will be hard to score on. But, you know, there's a few things from a lot of cook every match that, you know, A little shaky.

Yeah, she has our oopsies, yeah, for sure. Yeah, she had some in this game. I guess I mentioned one of them already. Right, right. And it's like every game she's getting caught on the ball at least once. Cook and Germa are my starters. I've made that abundantly clear, I know. But I think with Tiana Davidson coming back,

like she was in the camp before she believed started. She's transitioned back in. I think she could make a run for a cook spot. I think we could easily see a Germa Davidson backline for the World Cup. And if that happens, guys, we are. Oh, we're sitting pretty. Yeah. Let me read what Megan Rapino said about Germa after the game, or maybe the day after the game.

She said, there's very few players in my whole tenure that have stepped in and it's just like, oh, yeah, that's a first person on the team sheet type of player. every single time. She's just that good. I don't think you can leave her off the field, calm, extremely smart. And I don't think her physical, her physicality gets talked about enough deceptively quick. If you have any kind of quickness and brain, then that's a wrap. She can play any kind of ball. She's a great leader. She's just effing good. It's tough to step into this team at this level and immediately be a no-brainer starter. The last person I can really think of like that would probably be Julie Ertz. She just came in and immediately was a starter and played the World Cup and was that kind of first on the team sheet kind of player.

The impact was just immediate with Naomi. She's going to be the future of the team for a long time. I remember, like it was yesterday, being on the scuffed discord during a women's national team game. And I said, Germa should be our starter. And, oh, did I get it? Everybody was like, oh, brother, here she goes. But we're here.

I've been vindicated, and Naomi Germa is the best place. where we've got right now. Yeah, Basque in that vindication. I won for years. So second half, speaking of oopsies, Sanchez gives it away in Zone 14.

Just her and her and her hand trying to do a simple combination and she just can't connect it. And Iwabuchi gets on the ball and does Mewis again and then slides it to Oakee just inside the box. She lays it off for Fujino, who fires a really,

good shot low and hard, threw Sonnet's legs, roots Murphy to the spot, but veers wide of the post. So we narrowly avoid one there. Like I said earlier, I thought Sanchez got a couple decent sequences in, but then she was subbed off around the hour mark.

The rest of the game is Japan, almost scoring. So, uh, yeah, that was funny because like when I came back to the, uh, when I came back to the tell gate after the, after the game and,

uh, you know, I was telling everybody about my situation with Eden and not being able to see the second half and everybody was like, you didn't miss anything. You didn't miss anything. It was probably good that you were walking around. Yeah.

So yeah. Let me do the items as I'll do them quickly because we're getting kind of long here. There's a good cross from Fujino in the 61st minute that's met at the sixth by Hugita, the left wing back, but you can't steer it on frame. 63rd minute. Please jump in, guys, if you like, 63rd minute, a good step for an interception from Germa brought me out of my seat.

This was, do you guys remember this? Yeah. We crossed it into Japan's box. It kind of kicked up for Huran. She lost it. And then Shemizu tried to dump it for Ueki at midfield. And Germa just stepped right in front of her. And it's so, those kind of steps are so scary because if you get it wrong, you're done.

And she's not even sweating. Like she's just so composed. She knows what she's doing. It's, it's a blast to watch. That, that part in particular. Yeah. That brought, that brought me out of, out of my seat. And I was glad to see it.

79th minute. Hold on. Bell, did you get told to sit your ass down? No, because my wife was with the two big, the two boys down in the concourse like you. Okay, okay. So it was just me and Mave at that point. And Maeve didn't tell me to sit down. 79th minute Rapino gives it away in front of our box, a bit of a scramble, and then Nagano

rips one from 22 yards that beats Murphy, but bongs off the top of the crossbar. This is a bigger problem than even this interaction, like, led it to believe. We're asking Megan Rapino to defend. Like, she didn't even defend when she won the world. up multiple times. Like we are, but we're in an interesting place if we're asking her to be back here, back in our own box. And it never works out because that's not what she's ever, ever done.

Well, she wouldn't have had to defend there if she could have just found a teammate's feet and start passing into Japan. But, yeah. 80th minute, Mewis loses another duel and it gets slid out to Fujino, who rips one far post. It's cut out by a sliding Naomi Germa. And then in the 81st minute, you get the big chance for Hasagawa, a great save from Murphy. Nagano slips Hugida in past Sonnet down the left. Hugita hits a good ball across.

It's sub-drawn striker, Micah. Hamano leaves it for Hasagawa. And Hasagawa punches it at the goal with the outside of her right boot. Murphy gets her paws up and pushes it away. Actually, on the replay, wasn't that difficult of a save, but no. Still. Still, got to do it. And she did it.

Right. And then last thing I got is a block shot in the 86th and then the 88th for Japan and a speculative one in the 89th. So they just have us under the kosh. And Murphy makes a good save on a shot in the second minute of stoppage time when June Endo gets slipped in and ripped in. And rips one low and hard with her left foot. Very dynamic, that young endo. Yeah, like, I am. like to a fault focused on our national team.

Like I normally just don't care about other players, other teams. Even during the NWSL, I watched the national team players. Like, it's a problem. But Junindo won me over. I was really excited about her and I'm going to be enjoying watching her when Angel City starts back up. It'll be fun to hear. It'll be fun to connect with Greg about this game because I think he came back. from it saying Japan is his second favorite team.

Yeah, they were really fun. And I'm excited to hear what he thought of the Brazil-Canada game afterwards. But one thing I did want to know is, you know, U.S. soccer, as they do after a game, they put out, you know, cute little clips of the players talking while they're exhausted. And this clip in particular, it was Naomi Germa and Megan Rupino talking about Casey Murphy and like how great she did at the end because they were just down our throats a bit. But Megan Rapino, she she did like a gesture with her hands, like indicating, you know, Casey made them money. And I thought it was, I thought it was really interesting to remember the stakes of these games, like, especially with some of our new payment arrangements.

Like they made, I believe I saw it reported, they made 7,000 more dollars. because it was a win and not a tie. So I just thought that was a fun little reminder you don't often see players talk about. Right. I guess the last thing I have is, you know, we face Brazil tonight. Should I play the clip from Pia Sundaga? I think so, yeah. Okay.

This is the Brazilian coach talking about what to expect. 100% sure that you. as we start in 110 miles an hour, and we really need to deal with that, not only physically, not only tactically, but also mentally. So I think if we can keep them out of our box just for a while in the beginning, I think and keep a session a little bit longer, because then we could try to break their last line. But then we need to be patient and we need to move the ball.

Sounds like a character from an Ingmar Bergman film. I just thought that was so interesting how someone of her stature would like talk about our team and she made us seem like we were monsters. I loved it. They're going to come at us what 110 miles an hour and we got to hold them off for five minutes. And then we'll be good. So she thinks of us as monsters, but also, you know, maybe manageable, not manageable monsters. Yeah, like we'll tire ourselves out a bit, I guess, is the implication.

It's at 7 p.m. Eastern, USA versus Brazil. It's going to be a good one, too. Brazil's fun. Brazil's good. Brazil's good. They'd lose to Canada, though. It loses Canada. 2.0.

Well, they are the, you know, they did just win a gold medal. that's no that's no true small task i don't know i had just seen some stuff on the t-l like you know just just uh basically saying that we were gonna you know like like once brazil saw us that that we were gonna wish we did not see them i saw that too yeah but we'll see i heard that on a podcast we'll see we shall see um i would say i don't know overall i guess I came out of this game just being like, like, like, like, okay, okay. Like, I guess I, I am on, on terrorist side, whereas, like, if we made these changes, it came out okay, then I guess, I guess, I guess overall the result is okay for us.

I don't know. I, I just think we should expect a little more. And the fact that, okay, did you look at the, The possession numbers after the game? Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't great. But, well, we outpossessed them somehow, and I don't understand how we did that. It feels like, like I said, had the lady behind me saying that there's been no action on our end,

which was the end, like our offensive end at that point. And then in the second half also, you know, we have large periods of it where we're under the caution. So I don't know. I don't know what to take away. What were the possession stats? Because I'm surprised to hear that we outpossess them. 51% USA, 49% Japan. I don't know.

When you watched it, I just, you know, just did not get that. Yeah, well, it's important to remember that possession stats are, you know, like the number of passes that you complete. You know, it's not the amount of time you have the ball or where you have the ball. Fair enough. So, you know, Lindsay passing it back to Alana. Christy passing it back to Germa any chance she could. Yeah. Yo, so I will say on that, there was one specific time, a couple times where Christy passed

the ball backwards. And at the match, you could see she just didn't have any passing options. Other than, like, I mean, she could have passed it like to Horta, I guess. But like anyone like progressive, like nobody was there. And I think that's part of the reason why Sanchez was getting yelled out a lot. Yeah, I think I was going to just say that. I don't know if Sanchez has a really good feel for finding the the pocket and moving into the window where you're supposed to pass to her. You know what I mean?

Yes. And I think this goes, I think this is just part of like the growing process with our, you know, when you listen to the, we talked about the Ernie, the Ernie interview or whatever on the Monday review. and it does apply to the women's national team too because he was responsible for aligning these technical points of view with the men's and women's national team and if you watch women's college soccer if you watch the NWSL

they're not a lot of teams playing like true possession ball you know and I wonder we have I'm sorry to cut you off we have April announcement for the United States women's national team we're going to play Ireland in April. It's the final

FIFA window before the World Cup. And the two games are going to be in Austin and St. Louis. Oh, yeah, I'm in St. Louis. Guys, we've gone on way too long. We've got to go. Go ahead. Go ahead, Vince. He said, he's having gone on way too long, and he said,

well, just to completely finish my point about the growing process. Well, whatever the hell I was talking about. But basically what I'm saying is in college soccer and NWSL soccer, I don't know how many teams really truly play possession-oriented ball. NWSL is just like up and down, almost like a, it's like a leads match. Every game is like a leads match almost. And I do wonder if these players need time to adjust to positional play.

Yeah. I mean, Vodka said Sanchez needs at least 10 more games to like even have an idea. on this team. So I totally see what you're saying. Anyway, I do think, I do think that that moving into the

moving not into the space that you necessarily want to move into, but moving into the space that it is possible to pass it to is a really underrated ability. That's what I was trying to refer to with Sanchez earlier. Anyway,

yo, thanks guys. Thank you. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.