Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #377: USA v El Salvador recap

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Another tight scoreline vs Don Hugo's men, but lots of chances, Gio at a 10ish position, Miles back from his injury, Dike with the chance to start up top. Some things were learned. Also the USWNT dropped a roster this morning and we discuss that a little.----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. The U.S. men's national team beat El Salvador last night, 1-0 in Orlando, punching their ticket to the Nations League semifinals. It appears we will play Mexico, or at least that's likely, according to models run on the SCuff Discord by Dope Archipelago. If Canada draws Honduras tonight, we play Canada instead. We'll find out. Either way, it's going to be, I think, I think,

what is it, 85% chance we'd play Mexico? Yeah, I mean, his percentage is basically just map out to the likelihood of Canada drawing. Because if Canada draws, I think, based on the rule interpretation, we would play Canada. And if there's any other result, then we'd play Mexico. Okay. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Well, first of all, any high-level thoughts on the game last night? No, well, I want to start with that Mexico bit because I'm glad that we get Mexico in the semifinal.

Because otherwise, I don't think we would get to play Mexico because I don't think Mexico's getting to the final. Like if they had to play Canada on the other side of the bracket. Yeah, we'd miss out on our Mexico matchup, and I don't want to miss out on the Mexico matchup. I want a lot of them. Yeah, Mexico not playing super well, are they? Feel free to clip that audio of me and then use it if we should get destroyed against Mexico

in the semifinal in June. I never do that sort of thing. Well, on the game last night, I think you used the term. full speed like a full speed Conca Calf matchup and it it was that El Salvador is not you know they're not world beaters or anything but they're not that bad they're capable of making you earn it

I think we can say and we've we've earned points against them in our last four matches that's been close it's now gone zero zero one zero one one zero so now that doesn't necessarily mean that we haven't totally dominated them yeah we got a lot of chances last night yeah and not not in the Burrhalter against

Canada kind of a way. Like the field tilt in all four of those games. Well, let's throw out the away game to El Salvador in CNL because of the mud. That was just an odd spectacle. But in the other three matches on like, you know, roughly normal soccer terms, like total dominance as far as chances created, chances allowed field tilt. Like we were, we have been in control against El Salvador. And they've wrote a little bit of luck, a little bit of finishing, poor finishing conversion on our part to some very close results. To their credit, because the talent gap is significant. I think Jorge said Don Hugo has a jinx on us.

It might be that, man. Yeah. All right. So the lineups, Turner and goal, Sergenio Dest, Miles Robinson, Tim Reem, and Jedi Robinson across the back line. McKinney and Musa as the more, like, deeper deployed midfielder's. Geo Raina as the more advanced midfielder. Is that fair to say that's how it was?

Yes, I think that's fair, or at the very least, you know, I don't know. Yes, I think that's totally fair because certainly in defense, Gio Raina was defending as a second central forward, right? Like we defended in what I would probably call a 424 for large stretches, and Raina was right up there next to DK in defense. And even if you want to call it a 4-4-2 in defense, it was still Raina next to DK. So he clearly defensively was on a different plan. plane. And then in attack, it was just, Raina is very free. So yes, he would probably be nominally the high player,

but he would also, I don't think it was a true trivet where all three center midfielers were interchangeable. I think it was mostly probably just like read off of Gio Raina, because he would come back plenty of times all the way back right to the center to pick the ball up off of a centerback. And when that would happen,

one of Musa or McKenier both would then shift up higher than him in the buildup. And again, you know, talking about the overall trend of the We were under very little pressure from El Salvador when we had the ball. So we could sort of do whatever we wanted with it when we when we in the initial buildup phase. Yeah. Sendejas at right wing, D.K. at Stryker and Pulisic at left wing to start the game. So from the from the from the Grenada game, we flipped the back four total rotation in the back four.

And you know, we wondered if the front six was getting a rehearsal against Grenada. Turns out we switched D.K. and Pepe. Otherwise, it was it was kind of what we thought. which was the same front six, best front six in the moment, maybe according to the coaching staff, and then probably what they think of as the best back for in this camp. Yeah, I mean, I guess Sendejas replaced Aronson in the starting lineup. Oh, apologies, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and then El Salvador's lineup was Mario Martinez in goal.

I thought he had a pretty decent game. Alex rolled on, Eric Zavoleta, Roberto Dominguez, and Brian Tamacas across the back line. The band of four in midfield was Kevin Reyes, Brian Landa Verde, Narciso O'Rejana, Hairo Enriquez, and then the strikers, the two strikers were Brian Hill and Enrico Duenas. That's an experience back for El Salvador. Like, they were, they played together a lot. They have a bunch of caps.

That's arguably like their best back four. So that just sort of goes back to what I mean when I say they're at least going to make you earn it as much as like a seventh place team in the Ocho will make you earn it. Yeah. I thought, you know, Zavoleta had Dike in his pocket most of the game. I mean, most of the time that D.K. was on the field. Yeah, it was Dominguez who ends up getting really pantsed and he might be like their most experienced centerback. There's going to be some trends here. And I'll do a little stock up, stock down from my point of view at the end.

it's going to be brief. But right away, we get a giveaway from Sendejas right in the first 20 seconds. And it became a trend. Like he was too loose all game. We've chided and mocked Brendan Aronson, or at least I have, for months and months for getting little brothered. And I thought Sendejas was as little brothery as, as Aronson can be in this game. And it was a big disappointment because he's,

because he clearly knows out of soccer, you know? Yeah, he runs himself into some dead ends, right? Like some left-footed cul-de-sacs where he's cut down all of his options since he's not going to go back to his right foot. And if the rest of the team isn't like all-clicking with clockwork that you can anticipate, then it's like, oh, no, I'm out of angles and I don't have a plan, and now I'm getting crunched to the ground. He's a little dude.

Yeah, he is small. But again, great jawline. but a little small and that came that became a problem for him I thought El Salvador gets a decent chance in the second minute it's a throw-in which man we are the numbers of times we've been sleepy on throw-ins is starting to add up

Duenas gets in behind Musa in front of the centerbacks plays it over to heel at the you know sort of at the top of the box heel plays it over to Enriquez and he cuts in on desk and shoots for the far post draws a tipped save from Turner. So we can just talk about this too right now. Like Gio Raina playing as the nominal 10, he defended up as a forward.

But that is the big shift from what we saw at the World Cup where we were playing with MMA and had been playing for MMA through most of our, you know, full strength World Cup qualifying lineups. And when you move Gio Raina there and have him play up high, you obviously are losing significant, like defensive presence in the midfield. And you got to make that up somewhere or you're just or you're just going to like sort of, you know, run it back with a very exposed back line. And so it's not Gio's job to come back in defense. I don't want to say like he's not, he's being lazy or anything.

But that defense has to be made up somewhere, whether that's Zendahas or Poole Sick like pinching way in to help as needed. And so we kind of see the same thing here that we saw even against Grenada. The Grenada chances come from just sort of almost like. just not enough bodies behind the ball. Not having enough numbers. Yeah, that makes sense. It feels like we could, I mean, does it make that big of a difference

to just not have that one body there? I mean, yes, that's going to add up when you reduce your defensive presence by like 12%. Yeah. That's going to make a difference. So anyway, yeah, I just wanted to point that out. It can evolve in how cleanly we can rotate in Like, because it's not like it was always in Dejas tasked with defending or always pool sick.

Raina would even get back sometimes as we moved from the, you know, 424 defense higher up the field into more of like the mid block shape. But it's just, it's going to be something to keep an eye on. I think we have to try this. One, the news that Tyler Adams is out with a more significant injury than we had heard of at the beginning of this camp. And then, you know, and then either way, I think the obvious evolution. from what we saw at the World Cup was going to be testing out Geo Raina as a more attacking midfielder. So we're going to have to figure out what kind of rotations it's going to take to pull that off. It's super appealing.

He is awfully good and seems to really enjoy that role. And it seemed like his chemistry with his chemistry with McKinney and Musa is getting better all the time. Because we got to remember they don't have that many reps together and certainly not with Raina playing in the midfield. So just to see them start to combine a little bit is nice to see. That's, I thought, something we saw last night. I'm not going to list them all, but there were, there were Antony giveaways and Sendehas giveaways kind of throughout this game. I mean, with Anthony, it's kind of, you know, I kind of accept it.

It's just like part of what, it's part of who he is. And, you know, he can be a little, he can be tidier or less tight. as it happens from game to game, but you're going to get some messiness from him. I also thought even as early as like the fifth minute, D.K. can't find the ball, and that never really changes. I'm not sure that's all his fault, but it is a fact that he was not able to get on the ball.

Yeah, just very little involvement. Even going back to this in De House giveaways, that's going to be an issue if the whole reason you're trying to be on this team is like because you're going to be like a little bit of a, like technical strength player. So that's going to be a problem like right? Jedi's thing is going to be his strength is going to be how much

he can stretch the field vertically with his pace down the sideline. So you accept some weaknesses in other areas. What you don't want is a player whose supposed strength is actually being showcased as nowhere near good enough. Right. Yeah. I mean

spoiler alert. I think it's going to be a stock down for Sendejas. Even though I don't think you should be exiled or anything. Right, right. All right. Sixth minute, we get some slick progression from McKinney and Raina. It's, so McKinney receives a throw from Turner and then, you know, turns and outside

of the boot passes it to Raina. Raina sort of glides past a guy and then plays it back to Wes and Wes plays a pass to Zendejas, which Zendahas dummies for Dest, desks races down the line, plays the ball across to Dika and it gets cut out by Zavoleta who was very alert. Then it's, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say that was our first moment of really, really fun soccer that we got to see, which is nice. It's just nice to enjoy that sometimes.

And I was, you know, there was a vigorous debate over how good West McKinney was in that first half on the Discord. And I, you know, so I watched him pretty carefully. And this is the kind of play where I remember this play. I did not remember, you know, from the initial watch. I did not remember that Wes was the one who received it from Turner. and Wes was the one who played the past to Zendayaas' feet. It's that kind of stuff, for me at least, often just flies under the radar when I'm watching for the first time.

But then you watch it back and you're like, well, that was a lot of Weston McKinney making that happen. Yeah, once you start documenting it in your timeline and putting names down for who starts moves, you're like, oh, sure does, Wes's name sure does appear a lot in these. Yeah. Thought he was great. It turns out he was great. I even was one of those who was like, ah, he was kind of bad in the first half. I completely was wrong.

He was pretty good. Do you disagree with that? I mean, there was nothing. I couldn't really find anything to ding him for in the first half. I mean, so the only thing I'm dinging him for, and it's more of a general team ding is our urgency to join in, to go from the deep level into the attack. So I thought their quarterbacking between Wes and Gio,

who I think did the majority of the quarterbacking, was solid. Like they were picking out these nice vertical passes. They were being ambitious. They were executing enough of them that it was like an acceptable rate. And it was just like once we got up there and hit that vertical pass, then it felt like the breakdown was coming there. And it was a combination of technical things. Giveaways like Sendejas, Poulsick had a lot of them too. Oh, Poulosick had a horrible game.

It's easy to shrug off Poulsix because that's one game amongst a bunch of other games. We know we can do this. We know this can happen for him. but it's harder for when it's Zendayaas and it's the first game. It's like, okay, but is this who he really is? We're going to have to see him clean it up quickly if he wants to keep getting chances to clean it up. But yes, the vertical passes from West and McKenney were good, or from Wes and Raina were good. I wish we had seen more urgency from them once that vertical pass was made to then join and add attackers in the box.

Not sure if it was like, again, in the back of their heads that this is a new shape and like we got to be, we can't all. just go willy-nilly forward because we don't have Tyler Adams behind us. So I'm just going to be interested to see how that develops if they get more double-pivot games with Raina ahead of them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're, you know, that 50-yard run or 40-yard run that Pulisic made for the goal against Iran, I just don't know if we're ever going to get that kind of thing from Geo-Rena, you know?

They're just different kind of players. And I guess the challenge is to figure out how to fit them all together. there was a little bit of a scare where I thought maybe Turner was hurt in the first 10 minutes, but no, he was okay, something with his ribs maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I couldn't tell either if he twisted something on one of his saves or even with one of its throws, I didn't get any report on it. So no clue, but. Seems okay.

Yeah. Ninth minute, there was a, I want to clock this from Miles Robinson. It was a, you know, an outlet pass or kind of, you know, an outlet move that. resulted in like a long looping pass over to around midfield and Miles just races over and stamps it out and he did quite a bit of that a lot of ground covering a lot of reliability from him I thought he was excellent in this game you know he he in terms of like looking like he's back looking like he's physically up for it I think he passed with flying colors yeah solid game from him and something that was working against my Gio Raina agenda was how this play happened because

Raina doesn't tend to like just hit aimless crosses in. This was after our corner. It kind of got cleared out to the edge of the to the sideline and Raina went and chased it down. And then Raina just rena loops in like an aimless cross here. And one of the knocks against crossing is that it can often set up your opponent for a good counterattack. And that's exactly what happened. He crosses it in. We have players kind of shit moving towards the goal now and El Sopavis I mean, kind of a jail break going the other way, and Miles puts out the fire. Yeah. No more crossing.

This cycle. I think that was, wasn't that Gio's only cross of the game? I would assume so. Yeah. We get a little bit of a miscommunication. This was disappointing to me in the, in the moment and on rewatch, a little bit of a miscommunication between D.K. and Sendejas. San Dioz has the ball in a little pocket in the right channel, right half space,

or maybe even closer the wing. And then he tries to play it to D.K.'s feet. D.K. is looking to race in behind. He's looking for that through ball. And it would have been nice for D.K. to show as I think San Daz wanted him to. And then combined with Rana, who was, you know, lurking in the middle of the field in a little bit of space himself. But they just couldn't quite connect.

Yeah, and again, these two in particular have not played much together, so you're going to have different rhythms. And yeah, that was just another one that stood out as sort of an obvious miscue. Just one of those, like one of the kinds of breakdowns that we were having sort of all night. And we were a little sloppy. Yeah, yeah. There's that poor touch from Pulisick out of bounds on that Turner outlet throw. And he was very upset with himself. Cool sick that is

And that I think sort of was his game in a nutshell 11th minute Nice little leave from Gio for DK This is just some sort of head tennis going on in midfield Musa heads it towards Gio Gio Kind of leaves it flicks it for DK DK DK runs onto it

And then he gets fouled 30 yards from goal I it was just like one of the Few positive moments from DK in the game To get fouled from 30 30 yards from goal. I wish he maybe should have just passed it to Raina quicker or something. I don't know.

People had it a hard time with that all night. Raina didn't always give them the best angle to hit a pass into. And maybe his expectations were just that they would be able to thread a very tight needle. But yeah, he had a couple of times. He had one with Jedi in the second half where the guy just sort of ends up dribbling alongside him. They kind of hold hands up the field. Oh, yeah. So like in that case, maybe he needs to be.

he needs to hang back a little bit and give D.K. Moore a room to just knock it sideways to him. Yeah, something like that where you just changed the angle a little bit. Give your, give your buddy a little bit of an easier path because we might not always have the players who are going to be able to hit like a perfect ball in a very tight window. Right. The ensuing set piece is nodded across by McKinney just beyond the reach of Ream. So, you know, pretty decent scoring chance there. Let's see. I don't, I don't need. need to do all these things. It's going to take too long. All right. I'm not going to mention them all, but there was a clean diagonal from West to Dest out wide right. Dest gives it away cheaply and then gets megged but bailed out because it had

gone out of bounds. What did you think? What did you make a desk on the night? I enjoyed him. I mean, this guy hasn't played soccer in ages. I mean, I don't know what the situation is. Like when a player on loan is clearly just like not a part of the team anymore. I don't know if it's just they still train full speed or if it's something where they're they're literally just hanging out on the edge of the field all week. But it was it was fun to see him out there and it was fun to see him still being able to do some things that we really appreciate about Sergenio Dest. I mean, he was never tested defensively. I'm okay. I feel like I'm okay saying that. Yeah, not really. And he was sloppy too. I thought on the night as a whole.

but, you know, that's what happens when you roll in from a three-month vacation to play an international soccer game. Yeah. Well, and again, he was paired up with Zendayaas, so a lot of times there would be giveaways before he could really get involved in the combinations. But even then, they did still put a couple of nice combinations together. So, yeah, I mean, I think Vince said it best, like, what we really need to see is this kind of line up with Tim Waye in that spot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everybody's talking about how, you know,

Desk could open his own line of sauce. And it did occur to me. I want, does he even like spicy food? He is from the Netherlands. We don't need to get into that. But right around the 15 minute mark, a good diagonal from Musa to Dest,

good combo from Dest to Desk to Desk in Sendejas, as you referred to. Desk goes over in the box, doesn't get the call as he kind of does a step over and tries to go past the guy. debatable, but I think it's probably fair that it wasn't called a penalty. So I have this play marked. That was one of the really nice combinations between the two that came off.

I consider that coming off. Like we got the ball into the box in a very good attacking situation. But what I liked about this play the most was actually the lead up to it. And it's a pass that I really hope we can just, that we will just be taking for granted for the next two cycles. And it was McKinney quarterbacking in the center circle, not much pressure on him. He just stands on it. And then with almost like no drawback, pings like a 20-yard vertical ball to Raina's feet in a really tight window.

Raina then does something that I think we'll be able to take for granted for two cycles, which is just to control it and not get it poked away by somebody because Raina is a cheat code at that. So the ability to pass into the amoeba of El Salvador, who are a decently organized side and just break through them this way. Like Raina doesn't do anything crazy. He just gets it, shifts it out wide to Jedi. But we have broken their amoeba and they have to. to now shift and regroup and we get it to the left side and then very quickly through Musa's

diagonal switch it to the right. Like that is disorganizing the opponent with the ball and that is geo, like that is what Gio Raina can give you very quickly. It's like this instant upgrade to be able to hit that ball into a player and have them control it without getting bodied off and having the ball poked away and turning it into a scramble. So it's subtle stuff, but it's, it's such a huge thing and I'm really excited to see how we can take advantage of it this cycle. He truly looks like a man among boys out there. He and Wes both, I thought, in this game, really. We'll get a nice disguise pass from West to Sendejas.

This is a ping in the 18th minute. And Senteas just can't control it. And it's a giveaway. Like we've been saying, we're just a little bit messy. Everywhere on the field, I'd say the exceptions are Raina. Wes on rewatch, not really that messy. Reem and Miles and maybe Turner, I guess. What did you think of Musa?

Because he, I don't think it was bad or anything, but he looks, he looks a little, he just looks tired or something. Well, so there was talk about Musa's playing this game through Ramadan, so I don't know exactly what that does to his energy levels, if that's related at all. And then the other part, again, is that the quarterbacking duties in this shape,

with McKinney and Raina also in center mid, sort of just get passed off. El Salvador is not pressing, so if you think about what Musa gives us, it's that ability against a press to collect a ball, beat his man on the dribble, and then just advance the ball at the field. El Salvador's not pressing us.

We don't have to work to advance the ball from Matt Turner to the bottom of the attack, like to the other side of the attacking half. We can just do that for free. So Musa's traits are going to be less emphasized in this match, whereas McKenny and Raina being the same, the quarterbacks and sitting there, collecting it wherever they want to, and then picking out these vertical line-breaking passes into the amoeba, we're going to be what

the knight called for. Yeah. Yep. That makes sense. I thought maybe Moussa got hurt there in the 20th minute, but no, he was okay. We get another nice combo from Sendejas and Dest down the right. Desk whips a ball at the near post and Dekey's just a beat behind it and it's well defended by Zavoletta cut out.

Yeah, point to make here is that a lot of that combination movement was obscured by TNT's broadcast choices. A lot of weird, weird choices to zoom in on players who weren't even in the play. Like I get frustrated even when they zoom in on the winger on that sideline with the ball, but they were like zoomed in on the referee. Like we weren't even watching the player.

The fourth referee got a lot of air time. There was one time where Luca burst into, in like downfield in transition with like miles of space in front of him as he crosses midfield we go to like a four second shot of the fourth referee the back of the fourth referee like good grief what's going on guys so yeah so tn t is definitely in year after the world cup's uh like form form yeah so they've got some work to do too ahead of this uh ahead of this cycle yeah okay uh here we go 27 27 minute mark, West tries disguised through ball to D.K.

This was, this didn't necessarily jump out to me in an initial watch either, but it's really close to being a great pass into the box for D.K. He's making a good run sort of across the face of goal. It is, again, just barely cut out by Zavoleta. Shortly after that, West Springs Jedi down the left, and you feel like he's kind, I felt like he's kind of dealing at this point in the half. Oh yeah, he's so casual about it too. Again, he's like Raina where some of these things are really subtle and it might not stand out in real time as you're kind of caught up in what's happening next.

But on the rewatch, they really hit. This 27th minute sequence, and I don't just mean the one too detailed, like the whole minute. There was a minute long sequence of us just totally knocking on the door. And none of them get to really good shooting chances, but you can see kind of what we're capable of. that first one starting with Wes who's just very casually like standing on the ball looking into the

like far side of the field and then just fires that ball towards Dke who's running behind the right center back just barely cut out that starts it they clear that and Raina collects it he stands on it and then he hits a really nice

again not flashy but just a nice vertical pass up to Christian Pulisik into the amoeba Pulisik turns Megza the defender with a pass into Zendejas at the top of the arc So we're right on top of their goal. Zendayaas shifts it to his left, like slips Poulsick in behind. Like Poulsick's in on goal from the penalty spot.

It's tight. The pass kind of handcuffs him a little bit. It's behind him. His first touch is too heavy off to the goalkeeper. But like that's a real breakthrough that we created with real, real soccer. From there, the goalkeeper puns it up. Ream collects it, gets to Tammuzza, who gets it right back to Rana, sitting a little deeper in that quarterback spot. Another vertical pass to Christian Poulosik, who,

does like a perfect upback through with McKinney. So he sets it for McKinney. McKinney, uh, fires that diagonal ball to Jedi Robinson down the left flank. Oh yeah. Okay. So we're like, we are, we're in business here, right? And Jedi hits a cross that goes over everybody. And this is where the upback through stood out. The execution was great for the, for freeing Jedi. There was nobody in the box when that ball gets to Jedi and he crosses it. And it's just D.K. It's just DK at the six and nobody else has entered the box yet. And that's where I'm like, We don't have that urgency. Raina was sitting deep when he collected.

You know what I mean? So he's our most attacking-minded mid, if you want to call it that. He's not in the play. Pulisik lays it off to Weston McKenney, so he was checking back. He's not then, he doesn't then race into the box. McKenny hits the diagonal box, the diagonal of Jedi, and then he kind of just jogs forward watching his handiwork. And we just didn't have that mentality of get into the box and actually score on this.

I hear Frank Lampart is free. Maybe we could bring him in for a pep talk on how to arrive in the box. Dude, if we get Frank Lampard assistant U.S. Men's National Team coach for our attacking patterns, I wouldn't, I feel like I'd be okay with that. Yeah, as long as he understands Hudson Ball and can, you know, work within the parameters of Hudson Ball. Okay, so right after this up back through, you know, El Salvador struggles, eventually clears it again. And we very easily work it back to Gio Raina again, sort of on that left, just left of the center circle. He's a little bit higher up this time.

And again, he just very casually stands on it. and then shows off like some elite hit mobility as the defender trots out like half speed because geo's not moving like there's no threat that he's going to go anywhere and as a defender like gets even a little bit close to him geo just like burst to his right and completely rinses this guy out of nothing like there's no reason this guy should get beat here uh and geo walks to like the middle of the field and hits like a medium power shot load of the near post draws a save in a corner but that that like minute right there from 27 to 28 uh was some real like nice soccer and and kind of like a maybe a little preview of what we got more of in the second half yeah because the second half was it was just basically all that it was i mean at least until the game was sort of getting seen out um 30th minute we force a mistake a passback to to the centerback that dk intercepts easily and then he gets taken down from behind before he can do anything with it. It's a pretty egregious foul that was not given a yellow card for. See, Christian Pulisic takes the free kick from 20 yards and hits it right at the keeper,

and it's headed away before it even gets to the keeper. So, Gio was part of this turnover. Geo helped cause the turnover. And it's one of, it stood out to me because it was one of the only turnovers we created high up the field. Like our 424 wasn't really creating a lot of turnovers. And I don't know that it was even designed to. In El Salvador just wasn't going to play ball and let it create.

eight turnovers because after a while they would just lump it forward, which I think was a good plan by them. We haven't talked about it, but that 424 was interesting. And I have no idea how it's going to play out against other opponents or if we'll even keep doing it once we get a different coach in installed. But at least in this game, like it was, I think El Salvador was playing it correctly to do that. They would kind of bring those four up. They would kind of draw our front four up with Poulsick and Dehazahe joining Dekke and Raina. And then they would just lump it over. And the thing is they weren't committing numbers back to draw our four up like they were just holding the ball back there so when they'd hit it forward and the camera would pan over like you would see our

back four uh they'd also drawn up our two right so we had six players up so they'd just hit it into our back four and el salvador would have five guys up so it'd be five on four and even though they're not going to win the first ball against miles and ream if they especially if they can just like beat uh mckenny and musa up the field after the long ball like they could have had some in there. And so it's just an interesting sort of tactical dynamic to watch. And again, it puts a lot of pressure on McKenny and Musa. Once that ball's launched, they got to really be intent on working backward to help make up the numbers. To win that, well, to win the second ball, right? Or at least, yeah. Yeah. Around the 34-minute mark,

we get a nice moment from Pulisic and Raina after a ball defeat from Jedi to Pulisic and he just kind of helps it along to Raina, and Raina helps it along to himself heading down field. And it was just a very smooth break of pressure from both of them. I was happy to see that. Oh, yeah. I'm like, I'm going to, a lot of these are just going to turn into like Raina love fest, I think, as we watch the U.S. play these games, because it's, it's like this tiny little hesitation that Raina has that allows him to get this ball from Puliswick and then

continue it going the other way to Zendayaas, where it ends up. You know, like Raina has never bottled in. Like he gets it with his hips facing the side that it just came from, Jedi's sideline. And he just can give this tiny little shrug or hesitation that creates the, like, causes a defender to overcommit by even like a fraction of a step. And that's all it takes for Rain to then leverage him and spin and get it out to Zendayaas in the open field. Yeah. That long frame of his really helps too, I think.

Like, because once he gets that little bit of separation, you can't get it. back in front of him. It's impossible. Love a tall soccer player. Tall, beefy man, Giorina. Slovenia, I mean, Slovenia. El Salvador gets a decent chance in the 37th minute when Brian Heel turns Ream in the middle. So Ream gets drawn way up and he drives and dishes it wide to

Duenas, Duenas crosses it back for heel at the back post. And he heads it from close range, right at Turner. He was a step off side, though. It was a little bit of a warning shot, though. Warning shot, and again, just another example of, like, you know, is our, it's less about Ream. I mean, Ream got done here, but it's more about like, okay, well,

is our central midfield an issue here? Like, is our makeup of our central midfielder, midfield going to put Tim Ream in more of these situations than we want him to be in? What do you think? Yes? Too early to say. Okay. I don't think it necessarily does.

So I think it's good to get some of these situations on tape, look at how we rotated, look at how aggressively stepped into some challenges, like when you know Ream is up. McKenny was right there too. McKenny and Ream were sort of double teaming the guy and he spun out of Ream's side to beat the double team. But it's like, could we have just wrecked him,

like just run right through him, either of those guys and just taking the call? Yeah. Okay. There's some nice combo play. from Gio and Musa in the 39th minute. Ball ends up with Wes out wide. He plays a diagonal to Pulisic, wide left. A mistouch from Pulisic, just not as night. Forty second minute, tidy two-man build-up from Dest and Raina. Just tap, tap, tap, down the field. It's fun to watch those

two do this kind of thing. And then Dest, it ends with Dest in space in the corner. He hits a good cross onto Pulisic's head at the six. It's just a little too high. high for him to steer it on frame but um pretty good stuff there yeah i think i think that's a one that ended up skewing the xg quite a bit because uh the number the number it posted doesn't know that pool six that short so it just hasn't making contact thinks it's a good shot gives us like half a goal because it was a mean just skimmed off the top of his head really because if it if it is lower or if pool six taller that's that's like the tap-in header yeah um a couple more times where west tries to connect with Sendejas and something doesn't go right.

And then we have a stretch where McKinney keeps trying to chip the ball into the box. Actually, I mean, he does it twice in a row. Neither of them really come off. And then right before the half in stoppage time, Sendejas gets fouled outside the box, kind of dribbling out of control, but he gets bailed out by a hip check. And then Pulisic puts a good set piece on McKinney's head at the back post. And Wes misses the target. And he was mad at himself.

This was a really good chance. I, you know, as we watched the replay, my theory is he was just, he knew that the head of the defender was coming in towards his right ear. And he just didn't, you know, you kind of have to get your head around the ball to head it at the goal. And he was just a little bit reluctant to expose his head to that oncoming head, which I understand. I mean, you appreciate a good business decision here from West. I do

But I mean That's a scary That's like a low key kind of scary thing And It makes it It looks like a really bad miss I mean I guess it is a bad miss in some ways But

Anyway That's my take on the McKinney miss All right It's a good set piece Good movement for McKinney to get free Bad marking from El Salvador Yeah Loses his marker very easily

I don't know if he ever had a marker On the play I look I mean He loses markers against Mexico too. He can lose markers on set pieces. Fair enough. And that's the half. Let me just take the opportunity to say we are an ad-free podcast if you would like to join the Patreon and get exclusive episodes like the Monday review and then also access to the Discord where all kinds of news is broken and

you know, incredible stuff happens. Join the Patreon. Link is in the show notes. Second half is brighter from the U.S. I thought more urgency to attack. I don't know. Did you think we got into the box better than we did in the the first half or was that did that continue to be a bit of a problem um i don't know to be honest i didn't i didn't clock it specifically uh i think we were i think we tilted the field even more and i think we were uh cleaner in the in like the final 30 yards um which probably allowed for more players to find themselves in the box all right we're going to have our first vigorous disagreement of the day here uh in the 46th minute right away uh rana hits one off the post

It's a nice combination up the left. McKenny's again the one who kind of starts to move, steps on the ball, slows things down, plays it to Jedi, Jedi to Raina. Raina carries it up a little bit, plays it to Pulisic. Pulisic receives the ball with his back to goal, turns inside on his right foot, and then plays a lovely clipped pass. This was the moment of the night for Pulisic, lovely clipped pass to Raina running down the left wing. Raina cuts in on his right foot, and we have, you know, we have lots of

dueling screenshots in various group chats. Cutsin, maybe could have passed it to Zendahas? But then he does take, I think, a quite clever shot, and it goes off the near post, just misses. You don't, well, go ahead. What do you think? Should he have passed to Sendejas? He could have. He would have completed the pass, and odds are Zendahas would have gotten a shot off,

but the shots he would create to Zendahas is not markedly better for me than the shot that already exists for him. So like in that screenshot from the actual broadcast real-time angle, like it looks like Sendejas is all alone. And again, he's all alone to get the pass. But the defender that is next to D-K is also in the path of Zendahas. So I'm a staunch advocate for squaring it instead of shooting it from low angles. But usually what we're talking about is squaring it to like the extra man,

the man who's unaccounted for in all the chaos. You're squaring it to him to essentially pick the open tap-ins. shot and it's usually from like 12 yards in. This is a dude who's standing outside the box when you're asking to pass it to him. And again, it would be a good shot, but Raina also has a good shot. So I feel like this is, this one's a wash. And to be honest, like if it's coming down to Geo Raina or Zendahas, I'd just prefer Raina be the one creating his own shot.

Or at least I'm very open to that. Okay. I mean, I guess I give a little bit of extra points to Sendaias's left foot and how good it is and you know if he if reyna plays that pass you know softly and forces send a us to run towards it to come to to come onto it and then hit it i i do think you're right though the angle on that shot's not that much better than the one reina took anyway enough of that uh agree to mostly agree i guess like next next time we break one down i'm sure i will be fiercely saying he should have squared it. And I'll even say that about Gio sometimes. Obviously that Josh

Sargent missed opportunity against Honduras in the original Nation League playoff. Like that's the one in my head is like the obvious example where you got to square it, buddy. Yeah. Yep. Raina and McKenney combined nicely in the 47th minute. So just a minute later, setting up ultimately a Pulisic cross that gets deflected and skitters through the six. The ensuing set piece is there's lots of drama on the ensuing set pieces there's i think two of them uh dk does well to after some the ball pongs around after the first set piece dk does well to to nod it back across it's nearly thrashed in by ream from point blank blocked by a defender and the next set

piece mckenny uh gets high gets gets gets up in the air and his header goes just over doesn't doesn't quite connect with it well. Should also mention that set piece was no longer exclusively the domain of Christian Pulis, that he still took most of them. But Zendajas got in on some to hit in-swinging left-footed corners. Geo noticeably did not get in on any set pieces, did he? I don't believe so.

I don't think he did. But I didn't chart it. Miles at one point tracks down a long corner and crosses it, looping again, nodded smartly by D.K. back across. But I think this is a little bit of a ding against Wes. I think this was, Wes was a little slow to react when D.K. nodded it down. Like there was a chance for West to arrive and, you know,

punch that ball in. But he was a little slow to react. Anyway, it gets cut out. Should also point out that, was it Meg Swannick pointed out that, uh, Wes may be playing through illness? Yeah,

maybe he had the flu. Didn't seem to be bothering him that much. Well, we don't know. Maybe that's how it manifested was this exact play. Okay, fair enough. True, true. There's Miles Robinson tracking a guy down in the open field in the 58th minute, which is just, I thought, a very impressive moment for him. The guy has, I don't know, three steps on him, and he just glides in front of him, totally untroubled by this, you know, fledgling counterattack.

and very casually gets fouled hard from behind and takes the ball back. This is the time where McKinney finds, I mean, on the ensuing set piece, Zendahas finds McKenny on the back post. He nods it across again, but Ream is marked and they cut it out. Yeah, Miles had a bunch of good plays here. I do want to point out, too, like,

I'm not trying to, like, wet blanket it totally. But we've got to remember, like, This is the kind of game that is good to ease into. I mean, Grenada, you can't even really ease into a game because there's so little going on, I say, as we actually conceded a goal against Grenada. But the personnel, you know, Miles is dealing with here are not the kinds of players that we're going to need him to deal with as he gets back into the full swing of things. But I am glad that he showed that he could at least handle this game.

Yeah, I mean, you compare his performance in this game, which was a full-speed, Conccaf game, or at least to the way Trustee and McKenzie looked against Grenada, which wasn't terrible or anything, but just a little more, on the eye test, just a little more reliable looking and

definitive. Yeah, and again, I don't want to always be the wet blanket here. Like, Miles definitely checked the box he needed to check in a game where again, El Salvador very much playing for something. An El Salvador win here would have put El Salvador as champions of Group D in League A.

in the Congregation's League. So again, you know, and they were still in it. This is still zero-zero, like they are still in it with one flute goal, puts them in the playoffs. So, you know, the stakes are there for every play that Miles and Ream are making back there. But yeah, the degree of difficulty in this game is still fairly low. We just got to keep that in mind for everyone, to be honest. One day, one day Miles is going to be telling his grandkids about when he won the group D League A championship. Nations League.

Rolls off the tongue. Even with the spark we had in the second half, we were still kind of sloppy all over the field. I'll save that again. Then we get the subs for El Salvador had started coming on around the 55 minute mark. We get our subs, Pepian for D.K. And then Aronson for Sendejas in the 61st minute.

And then we get the USA's goal. and it was a nice goal. It was a really nice goal. McKinney picks it up deep from Ream in the 62nd minute turns and disguises his intentions by basically shaping his body as if to hit a diagonal and looking off to the left corner where Pulisic was.

And then just as Pepe breaks in front of the centerback, it was Dominguez this time. West just stabs a ball, a lovely through ball down that channel. And Pepe does well to shrug off Dominguez because Dominguez isn't asleep to it. He knows what's happening. He jostles with him, holds him off as the ball

kind of slows into his path, and then takes a touch or two, and then chips the keeper. Cool as he like. Made the let's keep it run in motion with his finger as he ran behind the goal. It's a wonderful pass from Wes and a classy finish from Pepe.

Yeah, everything about it from Pepe is fantastic, right? Because Dominguez kind of slams into him, I mean, the timing of this is good. This wasn't like a gold cup group stage backline where El Salvador were at sea. They had everything pretty organized. Pepe's getting leaned on and for him to just sort of dismiss that challenge initially and then dismiss like the follow-up pressure that Dominguez tries to put it on him from behind and be strong enough to still get that technical of a finish off.

It's just fantastic. It was manly is what it was. Yeah. And I wonder You know, Pepi's been Scoring goals this way in the Netherlands too You know, he can he obviously This is one of the two weapons in his weapon closet

I don't know how you say that But to you know to To chip the keeper at full tilt like this Do we have any other strikers who can do that? It's not the only thing that matters obviously It's not even close to that But like I've never seen sergeant score a goal that way.

Have we not? I don't know. Now I'm going to have to catalog them. I have never seen D.K. score a goal that way. Ferreira. Ferreira's done it. For sure. All right. Well, we're going to, that's some homework. We'll have to go through. Are you talking for the national team? Or you just saying in their weapon closet for

any team they play on? Yeah, for any team they play on, but it's got to be a national team player. Yeah. All right. We'll do a deep dive on weapon closet since you were going to do. Okay. Anything else? on the goal? It was, I mean, it's immense for, again, for the stakes, because once El Salvador needs two, that's pretty much the game done and dusted. Yeah, it's also immense for, I, I feel

good about it when I see Ricardo Pepe's score and, um, not saying you don't, just saying it makes me, it makes me happy in a kind of a special way. Absolutely. And we'll talk, I'm sure we'll get into it a little bit more in the stock up, stock down, segment. 68th minute, good interchange down the left wing, Raina to Musa to Anthony, who springs Raina down the line and Pulisic checks to the ball. Raina, so we're on the left side, Rana chops it laterally to Pulisic, who gets a toe to it to send it to Pepe in front of Zavoleta.

I don't know if that was intentional on Pulisik's part or not, but Pepe settles it and then is able to slam a shot. off the defender between him and the goal, so it's blocked. Yeah, it turns into a decent look here for Pepe. Yeah. And another exhibit in my case for Raina's soccer brain, you know, as Jedi just slides the ball to him pretty easily, and Raina's cutting towards the end line, or he's dribbling, attacking the end line, he pulls back his left foot as always going to hit that cross that most of

our players would hit in this situation, and instead he hits that disguise cut back to Poolsox's feet. It wasn't a perfect cutback and Poulsick kind of had to reach to even touch it at all, which is why I agree, probably not an intentional play to PEPI, but just more of like a keep it alive situation. But it's still just another one of those rain of things that we're getting that we aren't always getting from even Poolsick in that situation. Yeah. No, I don't think we're getting that kind of thing from Poulissick much at all, really. Craig just, Craig just adopted a thousand yard stare. I'm trying to think of who does hit that pass for us

and it's not a lot of guys at this point. We need that extra pass that you have to hit early in the sequence to be able to get your shot off. It comes back to that, I mean, I guess it's soccer brain is how you put it. It's just that calmness that he has when he is in the final third. He's a little bit more, just relaxed, untroubled.

He's relaxed, he's untroubled. and it's an understanding of where all the pieces are now and where all the pieces will be in a second from now. Yeah. That was pretty much Raina's last significant action. He comes off for Booth in the 72nd minute. Musa comes off for Luca. Luca had a good cameo, didn't he?

Yeah, and we go back to why this game didn't necessarily emphasize Musa's strengths. And it's like he was sort of just the bystander. next to McKinney and Raina. And so then you bring Booth on, or I'm sorry, you bring Luca on, and Luca can just as easily do that, but he can also maybe add in some of his strengths that this game would cater to a little bit more. Yeah, it's a conundrum, though,

because Musa is, I mean, I guess against a really good team, you're going to, Musa's going to be playing in front of Luca every time, right? I honestly don't know, and that's a, I think that's a good spot to be in. Like, we know Musa can, give us a lot of good qualities, which is great. And I think it's definitely possible that Luca can give us a lot of really good qualities.

And I'm excited that that is a real battle that could occur. Yeah. Yeah. One to watch. 73 minute mark, good string of passes from Miles to McKenney, who turns and plays Poulsick in space. Pulick drives and plays it wide for Wes. Wes back to Pooley. Pooley gets dispossessed just inside the box

and Luca over to Booth and Booth sends his cross into the seats. So, I mean, he gets dispossessed inside the box back to Luca. Luca plays it out wide to Booth and Booth sends his cross over the goal. Which was worrying because Booth's contribution in the last game was to hit seven crosses out of bounds

over everybody. So it's like, oh dear. Here we go. Booth figured, Booth sorted it out. He was, he had a better showing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We get in the 75th minute, Meyer Andres Heel Hurtado gets behind Wes on the half turn and plays Christian David Heel Hurtado in behind. I don't know if they're brothers or not. I didn't look that up. But Robinson recovers and blocks his shot. So it's a really nice pass from the one Hurtado to the other Hurtado. And Robinson gets beat, but then recovers and blocks the shot. even though Hurtado was two yards off side on the pass,

which I thought was kind of impressive. Yeah, and that, I mean, that was one of their only good looks in the second half, and it took a guy being two yards behind our pretty solid, solidly formed backline to do it. Yeah. It's a good thing catastrophic defender, Sergenio Dest, was able to keep the back line straight. I mean, rusty and catastrophic?

Rusty, catastrophic. It was a miracle. 77 minute mark. Good ball from West to Booth down the right. Wes had like, I don't know, seven or eight plus passes on the night like to carve up the defense. Yeah, and this leads to a really smart shot from Taylor Booth too.

So it was like a long looping ball and it's kind of, uh, Booth holds off a defender as he kind of runs with it. And then finally gains control of it and sort of cuts it back, uh, behind the defender who was maybe anticipated, another sort of more aimless cross.

And Booth gets it into the path of Arensen, who does well to get a nice shot off, some good technique from him. Yeah, he got really good contact on that. Yeah, shot gets blocked. But yeah, that was a nice moment for Booth. So I was like, okay, here we go. That's good stuff. That's what we got to see from the kid.

He gets a little more action and transition. The 79th looks up and tries to pick out Pepe. So he's coming down the right side, tries to pick out Pepey, who had flared to the back post. The passes, it gets to him. It's a little behind him so he can't, so Pepe can't, like, drive into it and take it first time at the goal. But he settles it and shoots, the shot is deflected, just wide of the post. The deflection was very subtle. I didn't notice it even on the replay, but. Yeah, and it didn't miss by much, so the deflection may have saved the goal. This was a bit of, like, a messy transition moment. Like, Luca kind of plays the

wrong, Luca wins it, or it's one to Luca. And Booth recognizes the moment and, He's like in. He cuts in hard from sort of the right half space and he is behind everybody. But Lucas passes a little bit off. It's played to like his outside shoulder. So he has to, Booth has to shift his momentum out. Okay.

From there, we're still in good shape. Dest races to catch up with this transition as well. He cuts hard, he slashes hard in front of Booth and then goes to the outside. And Booth probably misplays this a little bit too by limiting his options. He didn't cut in against Des' run. He just kind of stayed in that spot.

but Booth salvages it by hitting that nice clipped pass over to Pepe. And Pepey had done really well with his movement to flare out away and create some separation to give himself time to take a touch, which he took a perfect touch, perfect setup, great hit. We are getting some good returns here from Pepey within 20 minutes, 10, 15 minutes of his entry. We're already talking about three good shots, one goal. And when there's one more to come, too. Yeah. 81st minute McKinney with another lovely ball in behind this time for Booth

tries to zing it across the six to Pepe and it's just cut out by Savoletta but it's a really nice sequence I think from everybody involved I think by this point we'd started to really like I think El Salvador were a bit demoralized yeah like because we were there it just felt like this last 15 like of us just sort of racing racing at a ill-formed backline rather than what we'd seen in the first half, which was a very resolute defense. Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of chances in the last 20 minutes. That's not always the case with U.S. men's national team games. Sometimes these games get like borderline unwatchable after the 80th minute.

Booth mugs a guy in around the 84-minute mark at midfield, so takes a ball from a guy with the help of Brendan Aronson. They kind of gang up on him. and Booth is off, shifts it wide for Dest, who's overlapping, and Dest hits kind of a cute mid-stride, arcing ball to the back post. It was very joyful the way he struck that ball. Yes, right?

Like, that was an incredible technique. What a choice. It does, man. There's so much about Desk's game that makes me smile. Yeah. And Pepey brings it down with his totally outstretched left foot, kind of miraculously brings it down that way, and then tries on the half.

half folly from point blank with his left foot, but Martinez, the keeper had, was flying out to stop it and pushes it out wide with his right foot. Good goalkeeping, I think. Good goalkeeping. So that's four, four great chances for Ricardo Pepe. And, and they weren't just like necessarily put on a platter for him, right? He had to do on each of these shots, he had to do something. Like, he took a prep touch for everyone. He was holding people off. He was his movement ahead of time to get to where he could receive it was good. So this was, I mean, you want to check a box like Ricardo Pepi was checking a box in this game. It's kind of all you can do against an El Salvador, but he definitely did it.

Yep, I agree. There was that, we have to mark that 86 minute desk outside of the boot pass in a Rondo down on the right wing. I don't know, it didn't accomplish that much, but it was just, that's why we watch the game, you know, for that kind of stuff. It's, how do you even describe what he did there? It was like he kind of hopped into it. Yeah, he did the like, yeah, he's doing tricks. He's doing tricks during the game. I'm like, I don't know why I have both fingers crossed that A.C. Milan lets Deaths come and play against Mexico and April.

A really nice thing that happened in the 88th minute was that Luca juggle to Pulisic in the box. It's a throw in from Jedi. Luca takes two juggles in the air. You know, it doesn't hit the ground. two juggles and then dinks it over the defender for Pulisik who's arriving fast from the left and Pulisic tries the volley which is which I think the right choice and flashes it over but it was it was a kind of an eye-popping moment so this one even if even if poolie if the right choice wasn't to shoot it poolie is obligated to shoot it to try to complete the move yeah started because

the situation demanded a goal here so this was great uh also hilarious in the sequence was just how demoralized El Salvador was because the defender who was with Luca as the ball was being thrown in it gets like just over his shoulder and he just stands straight up hands on hips and like walks towards Luca while he's jogging. Is that right? It's the kind of thing I think it's Inriquez it's the kind of thing that might lead to like no more call-ups for the dude it was it was really noticeable and bad but the juggling was awesome. I thought

Pulisic's technique on the volley was a little bit off Like he It's No, take it through it We've used to pruder everything So we may as well I thought he tried to hit it too high

Like let it Let it fall a little bit more So he can get over it He I don't know Yeah He's a little better at soccer than I am I get what you're saying

Hit it right when it's on the car and you're not going to sky it over. Yeah. Okay. Taylor Booth got a bloody nose. Got another long carry from Luca, dispossessed just outside this El Salvador box. That's it.

One zero. We're going to, we're going to Vegas. We are. That should be, I mean, that's going to be a blast. You have some guys making a case for more looks.

And, I mean, I don't know what to say. What do you have for stock up here, bro. Just stock up for Peppy, stock up for Miles. Mostly, with Miles, it's mostly because we just didn't know how he would come back from injury. But we're in a situation where trustee McKenzie, I think, are, it's good to have them as options.

They haven't done anything really wrong in this window. But I worry about them, having watched a lot of their soccer over the years. Chris Richards is not playing at Crystal Palace. Dallas. And so, you know, I think a Ream Robinson centerback pairing kind of makes sense. And then we have CCV to throw in there too. I think Miles, I think Miles is above trustee and McKenzie. So in that sense, his stock is up. Yeah, I think that's fair. We probably didn't say his name many times, but Miles also did hit a couple of vertical passes in this match. So yeah, into traffic, into like McKinney's feet. So yeah, again, he did enough. that he is uh you can consider him back i think uh certainly back enough to get another call up in the either for the playoffs or for the gold cup yeah and it's there's a rob ushri the atlanta united guy he has a jiff on his um like his his pin tweet is a jiff of uh miles robinson holding off a attacker and taking the ball from him have you seen this before oh yeah i think it i think he

captained it with like my goals and me or something yeah it's uh robinson is depression and self doubt the player he's holding off the ball from the ball is me and then the ball is hopes and dreams it's very funny but it's like that miles robinson who is just solid so so solid physically and like on top of things that's i think what we saw last night anyway with all the caveats that are necessary and then i think peppy i'm doing a lot of talking here but i think peppy is is, I mean, he looked great. He did everything well. He seems like he's grown in confidence.

I know his underlying XG numbers aren't probably what they should be, but. But it was crazy high in this game. I mean, I haven't seen the breakdown because I don't know if we're going to get the Bill Connolly spreadsheet for the Nation's League playoff, or for the Nation's League group stage. But, I mean, again, four good, great looks in 30 minutes of work. is, that's a productive day for a young Ricardo. Yeah. He was good.

He's pretty assured in possession too. He's pretty good at combining. Maybe a little oversafe coming back to the ball on occasion, but. Yeah. He didn't have a lot of those moments in this game, I don't think. And again, part of that is because for the last 15, it was a lot more like transition, open field. We're kind of racing downhill. Yeah.

You got anybody else in stock up? Well, I'll just kind of give my mentality for how I'm watching these games and hopefully watching the early half of this cycle. And it's just like, we're a broken record here, but the player pool was so broken last cycle that we had a bunch of kids and it was correct to play all these kids. But they were definitely like thrust into real, like, important situations earlier than you would hope that they should have to be. So I feel like what I'm trying to do is separate my mentality for this cycle from last and just be like to really treat a lot of these guys as prospects, even the ones who played key parts in the last World Cup. So I'm trying to think of it as like, man, I know that a lot of these guys are almost like victims of their own of the own narrative hype that was following them last cycle where they were stepping up. But we don't have to think of them in those terms. They can exist outside of that.

So if you just think of so many of these guys as like prospects now auditioning for this World Cup cycle, it just feels a lot more exciting. So you had some guys really pass some tests and check boxes and introduce themselves in a positive way. And I just feel like it's making the viewing experience a lot more enjoyable. Yeah. So are you considering Musa prospect now? Musa probably not, but like even Brendan Aronson. Like, you know, we had scuffed, other than Watki and Tara, maybe would be considered not the biggest Brenda fans.

And I think that's true. But I think a lot of that was pushed back against, like, where maybe the, where maybe other people saw them rather than against Brenda in particular. And it's like, if you just think of Brendan Aronson as a, as a 22-year-old prospect trying to make his way into this team instead of, like, an EPL $30 million attacking midfielder who's already cemented his spot. then for me it's actually like more enjoyable to watch him and see what he can do rather than watching him and in sort of having that baggage of like he needs to be starting all the World Cup games right okay yeah well I I'll can I give a couple stock downs I guess I was going to say all that said stock downs and dais stock downs and dais don't exile him but um you know he's going to have to play better the next time he he gets on the field for the U.S. I would think

And D-K, I'm going to say stock down for him too, although I don't know if it's his fault, how that all played out. It's been several games with the national team, or at least every time he's played with the national team, which I know hasn't been that many times, where it's just you don't get to see what we're seeing for him with West Brom. You know, like there's, it maybe he's just not comfortable

or it doesn't quite vibe with the same. scheme or whatever, but it didn't work last night very well. Yeah, and it just comes down to like, you do have opportunities. And if you're D.K. and you're in this hat with a bunch of other players, and you can't take the opportunity you have and really put both hands on it and grab it. It is going to be harder to keep getting them, whether fair or not. Like, you know, if that early ball from McKinney does sneak through and D.K. gets onto it, he gets his chance to show, and it didn't, right?

And then the ball, the through all from McKinney to. Ricardo Pepe does get through And Pepe gets to grab that with both hands and finish it So yeah, some of that is you can consider it unfair The sample sizes are very small and the hat is very large So it's hard to know whether DK is going to tumble down a little bit Or if he'll still get another look this summer With all the different competitions we have going on

But yes, it's good, what do you want is you want someone to really seize it And Pepe did today Zendayaas obviously did not, I don't think, thing sees his, although that one little chipped shot that he had would have made up for everything if that had gone in. Oh, yeah. I didn't even mention that in the timeline. It was the moment of the night for him.

It was a good attempt. Oh, I loved it. And it was Musa's best moment, too, for me. Oh, yeah. His little disguise ball to Zendias. Real nice touch there. A sequence started by Gio Raina, by the way, who rescued. I think he rescued Zendayaas in zone 14.

Um, yeah, I think everybody else is stock the same. Um, Luca may be slightly up, Musa may be slightly down. I don't know. I think you add some, uh, add some to McKinney stock just for, for the quarterbacking. Like to see him do that and be like, okay, double pivot. Like, we can do this. We can play him in this role. Or at least, you know, we have more information that he's, he's not going to, I mean, we can still get some progressive passing from him. He's not, he's not some like, uh, dead end passer. Right. I mean, there's part of me that wishes we could put together a midfield that doesn't include Tyler Adams because then we would, we could have more soccering in there with all due respect to Tyler Adams.

Didn't we want McKenny Musa and Gio is our midfield against Wales? Wasn't that our Wales wish list? Because we didn't respect Wales's ability to attack us so we didn't mean Tyler. Maybe. I can't remember. If you say it was, it was. But so we need to figure out the. We need to figure out the rotations and how to like how to defend throw-ins in our in our half if we're going to get there. Let's before we get out of here, let's talk quickly about the U.S. women's national team roster. Oh yeah. Anything else on our software? April FIFA window.

So teams have to release and what's the big news, bells? Julie Ertz is back in. It's unclear that like what club she's going to be playing for. Or if she will play for one. We, I mean, it's not necessarily. The Discord is in an absolute uproar right now. People are jumping out of windows. It's crazy.

Yeah, that's the big one. So if you haven't been following Earths at all, it's because you can't, because she's been, she had a child a few months ago, or I don't know, several months ago now. And basically it's not played soccer since the Olympics, I don't think. Yeah. a professional competitive in a setting. She was driven into the ground by Vlachio at that Olympics, right?

Yes. I think that's the thing. She was playing through injury. Her and Sam Mewis both. So I don't know if that's a direct, if that directly caused her long layoff. But she has had an extremely long layoff that actually continues to this day. So it's a very interesting selection.

And very much like a, I mean, a thumb in the face to the very, agendaizing that goes on on Woso Wednesday about our defensive mid situation that Volatko leapt over all of that and just said we'll just bring Julie Ertz back well that was the theory all along is that that's is he always hoped that he could get her back that's why he wasn't auditioning more people at the six why he was doing kind of weird stuff like playing Taylor Corniac at the six because he's like well I'm just going to get Julie at the

11th hour well it turns out that it was exactly what he was trying to do so I don't know if he talked her into it and it's like a man I'm picturing like the money ball scene where they go tell the dude the dude who's super injured that he's going to play first base now like I don't like I don't know what kind of conversations flatco must have had with urts to be like yep this is this person's in or if it's none and it's just an absolute like long shot flyer that you can get her into this camp to reintegrate her just in case she ends up playing a little bit of soccer between now and New Zealand I suppose it could be that Kelly O'Hara back in as well.

Six fullbacks, if you counts on it. So there's some superfluous call-ups here. Yeah, I got to get geared up mentally and emotionally to really engage with all that. The coffee, Sam coffee's still on the outs. Yeah, no coffee. And Alyssa Thompson is not being integrated just in case she lights the league on fire, which I think is sort of what she would have to do to get called up. And so I wondered if she would be in this roster, again, as sort of a just-ing case.

But we just brought sort of the four-winger. So, no, Rapino, so it's Sophia back, Sophia Smith back, Sophia, Mal, Trinity, and Lynn Williams. Which, that's a formidable winger core right there. Oh, yeah. And was there any new news on Cat Macario today? I haven't seen if you mentioned her. In that interview, you guys talked about, it sounded like she's hoping to be back in April.

So, I mean, she's still played more soccer than Julie Erds in the last year and a half. But, no, I don't know if she's ready yet. Okay. All right. Well, Woso Wednesday, we'll pick that apart. And, yeah, thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.