Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #388: U20 World Cup — USA v Ecuador

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

A satisfying afternoon of soccer in Argentina! We're in a good spot for the rest of the group stage. Matt Hartman joins to recap the action from the 1-0 win over Ecuador.----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.U. 20s beat Ecuador on a stoppage time. Stunner from Jonathan Gomez. It was 1-0. The final score ultimately a deserved win. After 90 minutes of pretty good soccer, I thought, from the U.S. Not enough cutting edge in the final third until that last moment came out all right. And I think this will have been the toughest game in our group. So we're sitting pretty heading into the Fiji match on Tuesday.

Matt Hartman, the Orte. of Long Island is here with me. Matt, how you doing? I prefer profit, but I'm doing all bells. Thanks. Good. Thanks for joining me. Any big picture thoughts on the game before we get into the details? Yeah, I mean, super happy. You know, these World Cup games are just, you know, this is the point in the cycle where I'm like,

forget about the soccer, let's just win games. But watching good soccer is also great. So when you could do that and win a game, I mean, what more can you ask for? Right? I have to admit I was a little concerned because we did play very good soccer in the Concaf championship last summer. And then I thought a couple of more recent friendlies we didn't look as good against different competition. I thought, man, we might go up against Ecuador and really struggle. We didn't. We broke their pressure.

I think they sort of pressed us early in the game and backed off a little bit. Is that your sense of it? Yeah, I mean, I just think they got tired basically. you know, we'll get into it. But I think we had a pretty good setup for the game and, you know, credit to Tavares that I think game with the personnel that he picked went more or less as well as it could have gone

at least in terms of, you know, state of the game. Yeah, I tweeted this out, but it was a little bit like the Darlington Nagby Heat Map. Yep, absolutely. Very, very, we looked very good in the middle of the field, middle third. We could get into the attacking third, get into some, you know, get some AVPs, some real nice AVPs. And then we just couldn't put it together from there.

Why don't we go ahead and do the lineups? It was Gagaslanina and goal. And we played a somewhat surprising, played basically a three-four-three, right? Yeah, I mean, it was kind of fluid. You know, like I'd say it was mostly a three-four-three in possession. and then maybe more of a 3-5-1 outside of possession, as these things normally go. But, yes, it's not a shape we've seen a whole lot of from this group.

But I think we'll get into it after the lineup, but I think it makes a lot of sense for the personnel that we had available for the game. Yeah, Justin Shea, Brandon Craig, and Joshua Winder across the back line. Shea at Hoffenheim, Craig. sitting, you know, basically sitting on the bench in Philly and Winder at Louisville City reportedly headed to Benfica. So those were the three centerbacks. Jonathan Gomez, who is left-footed, played right-wingback,

which was a little bit of a surprise. And then Jack McGlynn and Obit Vargas, I almost said Marlon Vargas. What a mistake that would have been. Obed Vargas and then Kayla Wiley across that band of four. So Gomez and Wiley, the wingbacks. McGlynn and Vargas as a, midfielders sort of connecting the centerbacks to the front.

And then the front three was Quinn Sullivan, Diego Luna, and Owen Wolf. And I'm not really sure which was playing which position. It was very fluid among those three. Yeah, it was fluid among the three and it was also fluid between Wiley and Wolf, where Wiley would sometimes be the winger on the left-hand side. And if that player on the left-hand side got forward, it was usually Wiley. but the general shape was a 3-4-3 with Sullivan, Luna, and Wolf interchangeing, mostly Sullivan and Luna, and then Wolf and Wiley on the left. Yeah.

And I think you want to talk a little bit about how Cal and Paredes are coming back. What do you think? So just to remind everyone, K. Cal was out with a red card suspension because of the incident at the end of the Concaf Championship final, kind of silly incident. and then Paredes not released until after the group stage by Wolfsburg and Ruckus Pookstis, another midfielder, won't be released by Heduk Split until after the group stage. So those three will be joining us, you know, presumably for the first knockout round game. What difference do you think they'll make?

They'll certainly make a difference. Like if you look at this game, I think Paredes is a player that can certainly add something to what we saw today. And also Cowell, like we, any sort of like winger ability, I think, you know, because we, we, they're not to say that Quinn Sullivan isn't a good player.

He is, but he's kind of like a hard player to fit into any lineup. Kind of, you kind of just need to be like, oh, I guess we'll play him here and hopefully we get something out of him. But I think Cowell and Paredes, particularly will make a big impact and then the depth that, that, you know, he could potentially play big minutes in this tournament too when we get uh pussus from split as well

but without those guys i really liked the idea of playing a like a back three back five because neither solvin or wolf or wiley are real wingers so this way with with those wide um wingbacks you get uh with from you know players further back down the field and i and ecuador is best players are in the attack. So I like the idea of having the extra defender, the extra centerback on the fields to deal with direct play. So after the lineup was announced, my only real concern was Joe Go starting on the right,

Jonathan Gomez, because, you know, I just haven't seen him there that often. I don't think since he's been, since he was playing U-17 ball. And he's not exactly the most dependable defender, even when he's playing in his natural position. So that was the problem area that I saw, but I don't think it ended up being too problematic at all.

Yeah, he was, I think he was mostly fine. Of course, he had the decisive moment in the game, too. So, all right, let's talk about, let's just briefly go through the Ecuador lineup. Napa and goal, two De La Cruises, one on right back, one at left back, and then Garcia and Ordonia. as the centerbacks.

Zombrano and Gonzalez as the two deepest midfielders. And then a band of three of Minda, Paez, and Angulo. And then, I mean, Minda and Angulo, both quite tricky and dangerous. And then Quero was the striker, a big number nine.

Yeah, so I didn't know that much about any of these guys going in. I did a quick kind of scouting report a couple hours before kickoff. And Pius is definitely, Definitely on paper the danger man here. There's rumors a couple days ago that he's heading to Chelsea on transfer. That's supposed to be around $20 million.

So he'll end up playing for like underlect or something. Right, right. Mina and Angulo are the, yeah, it'll join the hundred other players playing in the low countries from Chelsea. That's right. Minda and Angulo are the fast, the tricky wing. that you mentioned, they definitely stand out on tape, though they don't necessarily have huge pedigree in terms of the clubs that they're rumored to have rumors with. I think Angulo is on Anderlecht, actually.

It might be why that came to mind. But neither of them are playing huge minutes. And the rest of the team are essentially complete unknowns to me. Yeah, they, when they got a chance to do something, they were generally pretty good, but they didn't get that many chances to do things. Because we were pretty, I mean, you know, as the game recedes in time, we were pretty dominant. The U.S. was pretty dominant, like, more or less.

Yeah, I would say, yeah, definitely. I would say, like, there were probably, there's like two 10-minute stretches, I think, maybe that come to mind where Ecuador found some success. but even when they had chances for the most part, it was like a result of a error that, you know, like just a bad giveaway or just like a guy, like mostly Angulo beating like two of our players and then failing to put like an inch perfect ball on a teammate's foot

that would have ended in a good shot. So like outside of those moments, it was only really like one or two stretches of the game where Ecuador even looked remotely like they belonged on the field with us. Yeah. Well, let's talk about it. Let's go through the timeline. I thought we were sharp out of the gate, playing, you know, flying into tackles,

connecting passes, that our ability to break that first line of pressure and then, you know, quickly switch the point of attack to one of the wing backs, which was a pattern of play. Often over to Wiley was, we were very proficient at that, taking it from the centerbacks to one of the wing backs in space in the attacking third. And, you know, we were doing that right off the bat, and we'd, basically did it all game, with the exception of those stretches that you mentioned where we just didn't have our foot on the ball.

Yeah, definitely. The buildups early, the first like 15 minutes of this game were fantastic, and it doesn't look like Ecuador really knew how to handle the patterns of play we were putting together. We just have so many guys that are comfortable playing a first-time ball if they're under danger, or returning with the ball if they aren't.

And that's soccer IQ and technical piece is really the thing that separates this group from previous U-20 groups, right? I would say so, yeah. I think it's even, even compares favorably to the 2019 group as a group, you know? Yeah.

Wouldn't you say? Yeah. In that specific skill, yeah, definitely. Just more technical players all around. Maybe not like the individual talents or like complete players, but yeah. I mean, it also definitely helped that Joe Goh and Wiley were starting from deeper positions, which made it, I think, easier for Miglin, but Muglin and the other midfielers

to spring them down the sidelines and the pattern of play that you're talking about when Ecuador tried to put us under pressure in our own half. Yeah. Now, there were some worries. There were some worries early on, and I think they were mostly centered around Joshua Winder. And at the 250 mark, he was just left for dead by Minda on the sideline. You know, it was a, you know, Minda had his back to the goal,

and he just turned, winder, and left him in the dust and gets into the box, squares it. It was scary because the ball slid right through the box untouched. If it had been a little bit better weighted or placed, it's a shot on goal from an extremely XG rich portion of the field. Because McGlynn, Jack McGlynn is behind the play a little bit. He's not tracking the guy that was closest to. to the ball. As it was, it slid right through and the danger passed. Yeah, it was unfortunately a sign, a bit of a sign of things to come for Winder, who I could really only assume was told to play safety early in this game and not really

worry about maintaining position as long as Che and Craig were there to cover. Because he's just way out there on the sideline, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when you have three defenders back there, you definitely won't want one to be that aggressive guy that stops the place from even really getting to that last line of defense. But, I mean, the real problem here is that he gets beat way too easily out there. And then, like you said, a better cross across the box maybe puts us in some problems there. But we're probably going to say I have a lot of negative stuff to say about Winder

over the course of this timeline. is just like moment to moment when Ecuador had one of our players to attack. They seemed to always be wandering that was getting us into a little bit of trouble. I think it's important to remember here that he's a 2005. And so he's able to play in the next 220 World Cup. That's, you know, fairly rare looking at the rosters in this tournament. And for 2005 to be starting at centerback, you know, it's kind of asking a lot. So something for remember.

Yeah, it's good to remember that because he had a rough outing. I think the problem for me was it seemed like athleticism, you know? Like he just was a little flat-footed, didn't have the fast-twitch ability to respond to those quick. Like there was this moment, there was that a moment that we'll get to later where Paias kind of, you know, just touched it around him and just burned him. And there was, I think one other, although I can't specifically. remember it. And then he didn't offer a ton in terms of distribution. He would he would step on the ball, kind of look around, and then just tap it to Craig for Craig to sort of carry the burden, which Craig was very capable of doing. I'm glad Craig was the one doing a lot of the distribution,

but I just didn't see too much good from Winder in this game. Yeah, like there's a lot of good things about playing in USL at a young age. One of the things that that USL is absolutely not going to prepare you for is athletes who could control soccer balls. Because if there were any athletes that could control soccer balls with regularity, they're going to be on Ambles Rosters in this country. Right. It may just be something that he was just seeing shadows out there a little bit because it wasn't something he was used to seeing. And it's not like scrimmages against our own players are going to prepare him that often for that. as well.

Like, Cowell's the only real guy on our team that even gets close to the style of play that these Ecuadorian attackers had. Yeah, and even Cal like, you know, doesn't always control the ball. I mean, I guess I'm sure Minda and Minda and Angelo don't always do it either. But anyway, so we'll try to keep the Winder criticism brief from here on out. We'll just make note of it. around the 355 mark just an absolute ping from Brandon Craig to Gomez wide right

it's a it results in a corner kick when Gomez tries to slip it into I think Sullivan was it um it could it could have been a wolf for Vargas but man this is like a chest high ball the ball that travels at chest high for probably 40 yards you know just just a just a gorgeous ball and Craig's distribution throughout the game was a thing to behold really. I mean, I don't know, I don't know that there's another player in the pool

who can pass that way. Maybe John Brooks, you know. Yeah, totally, totally. I mean, like Craig has this. Craig's had this in his locker for a long time. Like, this ability, the question with Brendan Craig is just going to, it's all going to come down to, you know,

his ability to defend against adults. And, I mean, that's the part that, like, was of concern going into this game. And, you know, he definitely held his own. But, yeah, like this, if he's able to even be, like, a remotely good defender, the ability to hit balls like this is just like that, that pass is the type of pass. Like, you could give me a thousand tries and I'm not hitting that. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I'm not, like, terrible at soccer either. I've never hit a pass. Like, in my life. But I think, I think it helps Craig to be sort of cushioned between two other centerbacks, you know, defense. defensively. That seems like sort of an ideal situation for him. So yeah, credit to Varus on all those counts.

Like I said, we were looking good early. Lots of good ideas. There was a, Craig made a nice crunching tackle along the sideline to stop a counter, gets a talking to from the ref, but no yellow. I just think that's worth noting because his defensive chops are the thing that is probably in question, as you said. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, like it's a, I think it was a tackle that like kind of looked worse than it was maybe benefit from the Ecuadorian taking advantage of, you know, kind of like a.

Yeah, he sold it. Yeah, he sold it a little bit. But yeah, like, I think that's the type of thing that you want to see from Craig, right? Him like asserting himself as a defender in this game with a lot of a lot of, you know, I mostly watch like literal children playing soccer. And we have a lot of guys in this country, a lot of really good players that can pass the ball from centerback. But they're like complete passengers when they don't have the ball at their feet. I'm like, that's the worry with Craig, like I said. So just seeing him willing to make a crunching tackle on the sideline like this in a high pressure situation is really fun.

Yeah. It was a crucial intervention too because it was things were Ecuador was running downhill and in some space. So we get a chance for Ecuador that comes very shortly after this. Can you describe it? Yeah, so it was like in the 16th, 17th minute. I think it was Craig. It might have been another centerback that slams. It was crack.

It was Craig. Okay. So Craig, he slams a pass off of McGlynn's back, just playing it out from the back. It created the first real Ecuadorian chance of the game because the ball just happened to fall right to like the Ecuadorian striker. And he dances around a player, but nothing really comes of the chance in the end, right? Right. Craig pokes it back towards Lenina.

It was a little unlucky on the giveaway there because, you know, McGlynn was doing, we had this nice pistoning action where McGlynn would pass it back to Craig and then, you know, one of the, you know, Craig would pass to McGlynn, McGlynn would pass it back to Craig, and then Craig would hit one of like usually often Luna,

you know, between the lines, and then we'd be off to the races. And I think we were basically doing this. And McGlynn just wasn't looking, and he's got to be a little less of a window, more of a door there, I think. Because Craig was trying to pick out Luna, and Luna was open. I did notice some good bite from Wynder and Justin Shea early on. So I got to mention that, you know, Winder was, winder was going in on tackles.

He was just going in late a lot of the time. But at least early on, he got, he had a couple nice tackles. Right. Let's talk about the, let's talk about the Ecuador chance in the 20th minute. Sure. So that one was a long ball over the top by Ecuador. And it seemed to like it found its runner, one of those speedy direct Ecuadorian forwards. But Craig gets positioning and managed to poke the ball away.

And, you know, at this point, we're 20 minutes. into the game and this is basically all that Ecuador has been able to conjure like these long balls to the speeder speedy forwards and Craig Che and Winder definitely looked like if that was the Ecuadorian plan and going in that it wasn't it wasn't going to put take them by surprise they were definitely up to the task yeah yeah there were some scary moments but this this really wasn't one of them and there were they were few and far between the 22nd minute we get a we get our first really big chance um it's an excellent ball from craig to luna checking back in the center circle as we've discussed luna it's about thigh high Luna leaps and flicks it to wolf I had somebody

in the discord was like well everybody can make that touch I'm not sure that that's true but um he flicks it over to wolf who uh who swings it out to wiley the pass is a little behind wiley so I just want to see that pass to be more in rhythm for Wiley I'm not sure it would have made that much difference but anyway swings out to Wiley Wiley gets to the end line not quite to the end line but skitters across through

towards Gomez it gets kind of deflected by a defender ends up back with McGlynn and Luna at the top of the box Luna out to who did you play it out to maybe Gomez and then Gomez

hits a right footed pass into the box. I could be wrong on that being Gomez. Somebody hits a right foot of ball into the box on the ground, and it gets deflected again to Vargas, who takes a good touch to get past his defender,

and he's one-on-one with the goalie from a tight angle, takes a shot, saved out of bounds. I think the only way he gets that in the goal is by chipping the keeper, and he tried to rip it past him. But it's a good chance. It's a real good scoring chance.

Yeah, definitely. You know, you set a lot of names in that description, Basically, these were the types of movements that the first, like, third of this game was really built on for us. And the only real reason why this one gets mentioned instead of the other ones is because it just had, like, that extra successful pass that ends up leading to a shot that a lot of the plays, a lot of those, like, movements in the rest of the game just didn't have. It would, the play would sputter and get deflected and we'd end up with, like, a throw-in or a corner that, didn't go anywhere or it would end up falling into like the closest part of you know zone 14 but closer to midfield than to the top of the 18 yard box and that would end in like a long

range shot that didn't hit the target right they get a Ecuador gets a string of passes in the 20 right around the 23 minute mark finds angulo on the left what did you see here yeah so this is where Angulo kind of comes alive in the game. He's clearly the danger man for most of the first half, at least for Ecuador. He picks up the ball and he's just one of those guys where

he stands up on the ball and he just looks dangerous. You don't want to get caught trying to pick the ball off of his foot. Gomez realizes that and is forced to back off to avoid getting blown past and Angulo tries it anyways,

and Gomez, I think, does well to make a good recovery tackle and put the ball out for a corner as Angulo tries to turn him. On the ensuing corner, a bit of a scramble and a shot blocked out for another corner. So, you know, this is maybe the beginning of one of those 10-minute stretches where Ecuador is a little more ascendant. Yeah, they're definitely growing into the game some. and like only a couple minutes later they find Angulo on the left again. His first touch this time is like absolutely incredible on this cross across the field that finds him.

And Gomez fails to prevent a dangerous cross, Angulo cross as Inguulu is heading towards the end line. And the cross just doesn't find a man because really Ecuador never had numbers forward in this game. Was this the like sort of waist high ball that sailed out of bounds, sailed right through the six and went out of bounds? Yeah, yep. All right. We get, here's a really scary moment, I thought, in the 31, around the 31 minute mark. Can you describe how it starts? Yeah, so again, it's Angulo making plays both ways as he steals the ball from a lazy Chee foray into the midfield.

Che picked up the ball and like what you would consider the, you know, like a generic right back position and spot on the field. and just kind of like walks into midfield in a way that you could kind of see Sergino desk doing. And the ball moves quickly from Angulo's foot around through a couple of Ecuadorian players. And it's Mina, Minda. Minda, Mina, Minda.

Yeah. Yeah, who beats Winder to deliver across, across through the six-yard box. And yeah, just not great all around here. Yeah, it was, it was, absolutely fizzed through the six and it was only Vargas's alertness and late intervention that saves the goal. He slides in and clears it because there was a Ecuadorian attacker lurking at the backpost. It would have been a goal for sure. They get another corner and Vargas gets

dunked on a bit by one of the defenders and the header goes over. Here we go. Another Ecuador chance around the 34 minute mark. It's Paez down the right wing. Again, Winder is flat-footed and gets beaten for pace. This is one I mentioned earlier. But he does well to get back and slow him down a little bit. Then Paiz cuts in and fires a shot over and wide from the top of the 18-yard box. Yeah, and I mean, these are like two back-to-black plays or, you know, like this period of the game is really like, Wander seems to be struggling.

You know, Pius is definitely a good player, but that moment down the right hand side where Pius picks up the ball, Wander just like completely, like there's, he has no chance because he hasn't set himself up to even run with Pius on the play. And, you know, he definitely does the thing that you're supposed to do in that situation, which is just like get in the way of the body of Paias to just like provide that quarter second or whatever it ends up being for yourself and your teammates to get back. It's not what I think we were hoping that Winder would look like in this tournament. So in the 38th minute, it's again Angulo, just like I wrote Taking Souls here

when I was watching it over the course of the game because he luckily wasn't that dangerous for the rest of the game, but this like 10-minute stretch here, he looked like, man, we have to do something about this because he blows. passed McGlynn in the corner on near our 18 yard box on our right hand side a minute or two earlier. And then after like a fairly good move from us down our left hand side, the ball ends up spitting out to midfield. And it's Angulo and Che.

They're essentially entered into a duel for the ball. And Angulo just like gets to the ball first, spins Che and then beats him to. down the right, our right flank for pace. And Angulo tries to find his strikers run. Stryker was making like a good run. He was being worked by one of our centerbacks. But in the end, it's Angulo puts the ball too close to Gaga who's able to collect it. Okay.

Yeah. Kind of getting tired of all these Ecuador chances. I mean, we're giving the impression that Ecuador was just like, you know, knocking on the door so hard. It's not, it wasn't quite like that, but there were there were these. definitely these chances. I clocked McGlynn getting stuck in in the 42nd minute, which I love to see he was kind of out riding somebody's back and poked the ball away.

He's never going to be Tyler Adams out there. But I would say he wasn't dead weight in this game against the ball. He wasn't a complete passenger. Do you disagree? No, no, I don't disagree. That's not really my problem with McClint. The problem with McClint is like just pure. athleticism, right?

But he has like the positional part of it in to where like I don't think he's ever going to be like a complete nonentity in the way that like you know, some of these other like unathletic center mids from US youth national

teams past have been because he at the very least like understands what he's supposed to do and where he's supposed to be. And when he's put in this situation where he's just going to be toast. Like he generally like at least tries to make a foul or do something.

Right. Like that. So I don't, I think like seeing what, having him get stuck in isn't like necessarily out of character for McGlynn. It's like not an effort problem. It's just like a pure like, I think it's like a ceiling limiter, right? More than it is. Yeah.

Anything else. Physical. Yeah. Just a plain old physical limitation. Right. So in the in the 42nd minute, we have. a good passing sequence that finds Wolf free centrally in the opposition half. He finds Luna on the left who chops the ball past De La Cruz,

but never quite regains control of the ball as it runs out of bounds for a goal kick. So I think at this point in the game, you have Wolf doing some good things. And it's kind of also the start of the Luna show. Yeah. Attempting to dribble past guys. Yeah, he did a lot. And I think that, you know, some opinions are split about whether that was appropriate or not.

But him getting that one v1 chances, it seems like a good situation for us to be here. I mean, rather him be the one going one v.1 with a right back than, say, Caleb Wiley. Even though nothing against Caleb Wiley. But, yeah, him not being able to either get a shot off or a pass off, really, was sort of our first half in a nutshell. And it was kind of Luna's, most of Luna's attempts

at attacking the goal with the ball at his feet in a nutshell. I do kind of disagree on Wolf, although I don't, you know, I don't, I didn't watch him that carefully, but I didn't think, I didn't think, I didn't think he was terrible. I didn't, I don't know that, I would say he was doing a lot of good things, but. Yeah, I think, I think the Wolf thing mostly comes down to like, not, he's, he's just not a player that, he's a player I've watched, like, a lot of over the years, and he's not a player that I've thought would be in this, but the position that he's in now. especially given that he's on the younger side.

You mean playing regularly for Austin FC and on this team? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So just having him be in this team and not be a liability, I think, is good. Like, that's progress for me compared to what my expectations kind of are for him. But yeah, like he's not, he certainly wasn't doing anything all of that special. I mean, like, on both the defensive and the midfield line, it's basically just like get the ball to Craig, get the ball to McClint.

Right, right. I'm not going to do anything else. Yeah. And he's also not, it's fair to point out, he's also not really a winger or like an attacking, like a front three player for Austin. So he's a midfielder. We've, like we've talked about, we have been able to break lines of pressure and connected to the wing backs.

I do think there were a few moments where I thought, why don't we just try the through ball? Try the first runner, you know? Try the ball in behind for Sullivan or Luna, and then we would just, we would spray it out to Wiley. And that's oftentimes a good choice in a soccer match. But I wish we had been just a little more direct, a little more vertical, if you will, on some of those occasions.

Yeah, I mean, that just isn't what this team has been, right? Like the whole cycle. That's true. This team, this team plays the ball more horizontally. like then vertically even in the opposing final third. There's a lot of walk football, some may call it, playing them around and like side to side. Yeah, probing. I guess the flattering way to describe it is probing, but I don't know that it was really that.

44th minute, McGlynn gets to have one. He sends it out to Wiley, a nice pass out to Wiley, one of those, you know, finding the wingback moments. and then Wiley kind of squares McGlynn at the top of the box or, you know, good six, seven yards out of the box, away from the box, and McGlynn has one and just sends it out of the stadium. I back him to put that on frame and maybe score a goal, so it's the kind of chance we want to see, but didn't work, didn't work out.

Yeah, I mean, there's like a, like I said earlier, like there's a bunch of times when this sort of move ended in this sort of chance where it's like, I think it was mostly, Glenn and Sullivan that pick up the ball like 25, 30 yards out. Don't see too many options, have the space in front of them and just hit the ball, try to put it on target, not successful for the most part. It's not an easy technique. They're both capable, but I kind of don't think that this is the shot that we want

to be settling for on a regular basis. I mean, Glenn's left foot is so good that I, that I, I'm okay with it. but yeah, yeah. All right, so the half comes. And what are your halftime thoughts? Yeah, I mean, good. Nice, controlled half. We made them work.

Didn't let them get too much going in combination. I think the difference between us having one or two at half and the zero that we ended up with was just a lack of success once the ball hit our forward line at progressing it into dangerous spaces. Josh Winder looked like he may be an issue, but the rest of the defenders were picking, up to Slack, really happy with Greg and Obit Vargas in particular, who were guys that I had

at least some level of question mark coming in, and I thought that they in particular played really good 45 minutes. Yeah, we didn't talk about Vargas hardly at all there in the first half, other than that goal line clearance and the chance on the other end. What did you like that you saw from him? What surprised you about him? I mean, nothing really surprised me about him. He kind of just played, like, we're used to him playing for the, you know, the,

a few U.S. youth national team appearance he's had, but also for Seattle in which, like, he's just a super solid guy, like, easy to forget about while he's playing, but he's just doing so many good things in midfield, like, completing a high number of his passes. I'd be surprised if he misplaced

like four or five passes the whole game. You know, a lot of that were, a lot of those were sideways passes, but he makes himself an option, which is, like, really important for a midfielder. Like, we've seen way too many midfielder is over the years in these youth national teams that just like hide themselves,

you know, behind opposing defenders instead of making themselves an option. So he makes himself an option. He plays like one touch ball to move the ball around and useful like always in passing lanes defensively. He's the type of player where like even if he's not active, even if it's not like on ball stuff that is making him an asset to the team, having a guy like Vargas and the team makes McGlynn all that much, a guy like McGlynn all that much better. Yeah, that's a good way to think about it because I was kind of pretty lukewarm on Vargas

going into this, but I agree he was quite solid and I'm going to eat some crow there a little bit. So in the second half, 47 minute mark we get a blast from Craig

after a good passage of play and it just, you know, a ball that sprays out to the top of the box and he has one. with his left foot. And it looked like it was bending on frame, but probably wouldn't, it wasn't hit with a ton of venom. Probably would have been grabbed by the keeper,

but that was a nice shot, I think. Yeah, good shot. I don't think it would have been an easy catch. There was like a lot of spin, like outside didn't spin on that ball. But again, like not exactly the type of shot we want to be settling for, even if it is, you know,

these technique geniuses that we have from coming out of the, Philadelphia Union Academy. Yeah, worth mentioning three starters from Philadelphia on this team. Sullivan, McGlynn, and Craig. Most of you who listen to this podcast know that already, but I'm just going to say it for the, you know, two or three of you who don't.

McGlynn's a Long Island kid, all right? Just FYI. Okay, oh, yeah, okay. Philadelphia doesn't get to claim him just because he was in that academy for three months, three years, or whatever it was. Yeah, I just meant he's in the, he's a Philadelphia Union player. I wasn't trying to be, Merch the name of Long Island.

We've got to take everything we can, fellas. I feel that. 51st minute, Wiley has one from distance off a corner that also doesn't miss by much. A very similar moment. Yeah, it's a bad clearance that falls nicely to Wiley. And that's the type of hit from distance that, you know, like blast it. And if it's over, it gives you time to reset your shape from the corner. So you don't really mind that at all.

Yeah, hit it well just a little too high. He had an Ecuadorian leg coming through his kicking motion a little bit, which, you know, if he would have maybe prevented him from getting over it the way he wanted to. But it's still, I don't know, a couple inches above the crossbar. 52nd minute, we get another nice passage of play. McGlynn plays it out to Wolf down the line. Wolf plays it back to McGlynn. McGlynn slips it to Wiley,

and his attempt at a cross is sent out for a corner. Yep, I think this play in the game really illustrates what McGlynn offers. He's so calm and controlled in midfield. He's just always an option to ping the ball off of if you need to. And that's useful in and of itself, but McGlynn also has the vision to pick his head up and turn one of those back and forth passes, passing motions into slipping a teammate in.

So, yeah, great from McGlynn and the McGlynn-Wolf Vargas midfield, I think, for coming from what my concerns were coming into the tournament, where is just about as good as could be expected at this point. Yeah, because some of you will remember back in 2019, we got knocked out by Ecuador at the U-20 World Cup. Yeah, this isn't an easy to. team. Like, we don't know too much about them, like, as individual players.

But this is a team that qualified ahead of Argentina, right? In South America, like, this isn't a team that historically youth national team midfields in particular are competitive with. Right. Well, our midfield in that game got run over by their midfield back in 2019. So, yeah, this is a good point. It's good to see this. 54 minute mark We have this lovely sequence

Maybe the most lovely non-goal scoring sequence of the game It's a McGlynn entry pass to Luna With his back to goal And Luna just finesses it with the outside of his boot Behind the back line for Wiley Wiley's first touch takes him a little wide And he tries to clip it across the six And the keeper gets enough of a touch

to slow the ball down and it gets cleared from inside the six. But that, yeah, it's a nice, it's a really nice touch from Luna. Like, gorgeous. Yes. Yeah, great stuff all around. But it is that touch from Luna. He's like, it's like a spinning outside of the boot pass without very much time to think about where you're going to put it that he puts into the path of Wiley.

Like, that's the thing that really deserves the attention here. and you know, like I remain unconvinced by Luna as a prospect. Like he's just like kind of an interesting player to project to higher levels. But man oh man, is he, is he fun? And he'd be involved in our next chance as well, right? Yeah, well, he doesn't play, he doesn't play for Ray Alsault Lake very much under Pablo Mastroini. So that's a bummer. And yeah, but, but yeah, he's fun.

He's fun. And he does ask questions of the opposing defense. And the next chance that you mentioned, 59 minute mark, there's kind of a bozo moment from Napa where the goalkeeper kicks it off one of his own defenders and sort of a confusing moment for them. It falls to Luna and he tries to loop it with the outside of his boot from, I don't know, 30 yards out and into an empty goal and just misses.

I mean, it trickles wide of the post by like a half a foot or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like just had the wrong spin on it to end up in the back of the net. But yeah, like it would have been a pretty unfortunate way for Ecuador and hilarious way to break the tie. Honestly, it looked really painful. The goalkeeper hit that like full strength right into the side of his defender's head from like six feet. And the defender got like right up and actually.

almost like cleared the ball. Like if it were to go in, he might have gotten, he was just, just wouldn't have gotten there in time. So credit to that kid. Yeah. Then Yappy comes on, 65 minute mark. Yappy comes on for Sullivan, 70 minute mark. Edelman comes on for Vargas.

And the game loses a little bit of its vigor, I think, in this stretch. Yeah, this like 10 minute stretch of the game from like around a 60th minute to the so let's say like 75th minute mark. it was sloppy all around. We struggled to move the ball through the lines.

Ecuador was finding more success in midfield, but the final ball was never really there. Ball went out of play like 10 times in like 10 minutes or something like that. I think it was, so Vargas goes off in the 70th minute, and I think it was a good game from him, even if he was a little safe with his passing,

that like really just happy with what we got out of him for 70 minutes and Winder even like in that safe passing I think is mostly because Winder and Vargas were just had seemed happy to let Craig distribute because he was just you know he basically could do no wrong with the ball at his foot so good so good at distributing um selina went down in the 76 minute and I the trainers were out there for a little while I don't know what was going on there

Yeah, me neither Like it seemed It seemed by the way that he was kind of like Holding his back that it might have been a lower back thing He also after the trainer came on He took like four of like the fruit pouches Things back with him So I'm like what's that

That seems like an excessive amount of fruit pouches Given that there's 15 minutes left in the game So maybe he was just dehydrated or something I don't know I don't think I didn't think either team-minded the two-minute break though because it was a relative pretty exhausting first 75 minutes yeah 80th minute we get a nice tackle from edelman uh who just crunches a guy it sprays to yopi and he drives and takes a right-footed shot it's pretty much right at the keeper but it's it's hit

it bounces right before it gets to the keeper so it skips off his chest out wide yeah but there's nobody there's nobody from the u.s there to sort of collect the rebound so the the whole moment kind of dies but right yeah it was a weird save looked kind of like the keeper got taken by surprise uh on by surprise by the pace of the ball he like kind of went down like he was going to two-hand it and just fall on top of the ball and then he was like oh that's not an option better just let this rebound off my chest um it was kind of the only moment of the game i thought where the goalie looked if he maybe and maybe until the goalie looked if he maybe until the goal, which I think would have been asking a lot for him to get to.

So a really good game by this point for him. We did end up putting a number of shots on target. So it wasn't even if we haven't mentioned them outright, it wasn't like he wasn't getting tested. I would say it's fair to say Gaga wasn't getting tested. But there was at the very least the question being axed of. Yeah. Yeah. 83rd minute, we get a nice ball from Wiley for Yappy.

and he's 1V1 with somebody coming at the goal from the left but his touch to eliminate defender is just a little too heavy and the keeper closes him down. Yeah, really good from Wiley but the goal he just gets there

he was pretty quick off his line, brave to just go into the tackle. This type of opportunities were the type of opportunities we really didn't create throughout the game where we're finding our attackers centrally with like a man like a center back to beat where we were at putting pressure on individual defenders from Ecuador so it was good to see this and yappies may be the type of

profile that allows you to make this sort of pass inside whereas like luna might just have gotten crunched or something but yeah like this is this is i think the reason why like we had we this team has to play the soccer why this team does play the soccer it does is because we don't have the the Yappy on the field, got Yappy types on the field to maybe open up this opportunity. Maybe Yappy gets the start against Fiji. We'll see. It was a nice little outside of the boot slip pass from Wiley.

85th minute Gomez chases down a long corner from, Luna's corners, we're all sailing over the box in which, you know, so it's an American tradition, kind of bad set pieces. But Gomez chases it down and then beats his guy to going to his right and zips it low. I mean, this was a dangerous moment.

Zips it low at the goal. It looked like it was basically a shot on goal, kicked out by the keeper. But there were, you know, three white shirts in the six at the moment, so anything could have happened there. So it felt like we were not, we were starting to knock on the door again.

Luna was saucing a lot, you know, taking people on, dribbling past two guys, but not the third. And I think some people, are saying, well, that's just poor decision-making. I don't know. I mean, we needed somebody to sort of take the game on their shoulders and try to do stuff.

I didn't really mind it that much. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, at this point, like, he was kind of the only person that we thought, that I thought had, like, any sort of chance of making something happen where he was going to bring the ball into the 18-yard box himself. And if not, score, then, like, just set up a teammate. And if it wasn't going to be that, It probably wasn't going to happen.

Like I was at this point just like, all right, I'm taking the zero zero here. The attack just wasn't cohesive enough throughout the game to score goals, lots of good effort from Wiley Gomez and McGlynn to set up our attackers in good places. But Sullivan struggled all game, I think. Luna couldn't finish plays, and Wiley rarely made it into dangerous areas,

especially as the game went on. Right. Yeah, it's good to see Luna with his mojo back, I would say, even if he wasn't, you know, the decider of this game. So that's nice. Shakira came on for Luna at the beginning, right at the beginning of stoppage time. And then we got the goal. Yeah, so the goal starts as a Gaga goal kick that ends in what you can't really call an aerial duel because McLean, loses it so bad. It's him and Castillo both go up for it, but by the time the ball hits

Castillo's head, McGlynn is like already six feet away from him because it was just like such a non-competitive duel. It was like he was pretending to jump for the ball. Yeah. But Castillo heads it down and it hits off the left side of McGlynn's head and rebounds off of McGlynn's head right onto the foot of Nico Securis. And we have possession. So a little bit of luck there. Well, but you got to, I want to say, Shakiris, I want to give Chris Shakiris a little credit here because he just, he just one-touch volleys it right to the feet of Yappy, you know.

Right, and then Yappy plays a nice little ball back or something like that, right before it gets crossed into Gomez. Yeah, he square, Yappy squares it out to Wolf. Wolf has a little time and space. He tries to switch play to, well, he does switch play to Gomez, and then tell me what happens. Tell me what happens. Yeah, so ball gets to Gomez and Gomez like takes it off of his chest and takes it like off half volley left footage strike right after that. Last touch off of his chest next touch that volley.

You know, like what can you say really? Half volley left footed in stoppage time of a World Cup game perfectly. Not like perfectly, perfectly placed, but I don't really think the goalie could have done too much to stop it and ends up from the goalie's perspective in top left-hand corner. Dream stuff. Happy he got it because he was really good, I think, both ways, pretty good, maybe more fair, both ways, all game,

and had the most dangerous Ecuadorian danger man on his side the whole game. So he had to really make sure he was going both ways. And for him to get the goal after playing as a two-way player, playing fairly well for 92 minutes or whatever it is, I think that really says something. Chef's kiss. Yeah, it was that touch off the chest to eliminate the defender was, it's like one of those weird plays where the ball wasn't perfect, you know,

but the way it played out was perfect because it allowed Gomez to take that touch off his chest to eliminate the defender. defender didn't, I don't know what the defender can do there, you know, anticipate that touch maybe. And then, yeah, it's a great, it's a great strike. The goalkeeper got a finger to it, but not enough. Right. I think he did well to get a finger to it. It was like a, he had to react really quickly to it.

And just like the technique of the strike is, you know, like, it's again, we said it earlier with like the Craig cross. But like, this is another one where like, this is the type of thing where like somebody passes it to you and like a wreck game and you're, You take that as he took that, and it's like, I can guarantee you if that's me. It's going out for, like, a throw-in. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you were saying you were, you were sort of preparing for a zero-zero-zero draw. A zero-zero draw in this game would not have been a terrible result, you know? It's like, it would have been fine.

Because we have, presumably we can beat Fiji on Tuesday, and you think we have, you like our chances against Slovakia. Right. So, yeah. It's a great start to the tournament. it definitely i don't want to take i mean you know fiji's fiji i think we should beat fiji but i remember sitting and watching the 2015 u20 world cup where fiji beat three they won three nothing against a honduras team that featured like what is now half of the honduras national team like albert alice was on that team and people were like they just took them completely by

surprise wow i didn't know that that was a fact that's good all right Well, let's get down to business, boys. Yeah, a deserved win. And has anybody risen for you? You know, it's nice to win. It would be nice if we win the U-20 World Cup. But, you know, as Mikey Varus likes to say, it's all about development. Is there anybody on this team who has sort of risen in your estimation as a senior national team prospect?

Yeah, I think, like, the primary one is Brendan Craig. He's one of those guys who like I've always thought that he was like he's like all potential right. Like there if if Renning Craig hits he's going to hit pretty big

so it's like really exciting to see him as he moves up to age groups maybe like impacting the game more and more as he goes which is exactly what you want to see and then even coming into this game it's like man against the speed and skill that Ecuador have Brendan Craig might be a problem

But, you know, he definitely, he held his own all game. So Craig definitely, I think, for me, is the most exciting, like, stock up from this particular 90 minutes. But also Obed Vargas, right? Like, a kid who spent, like, a lot of time injured over the last year where to the point where, like, there were rumblings that, like, maybe he's just, like, a right off. You know, like, maybe this injury thing. kids with lower back injuries this early in their career. Like it could be a problematic thing. You know, he's missed a lot of time now, yada yada.

And he came into this game. I don't think he looked out of place. And then I think I'm also really happy with the wingbacks, both Jogo and Caleb Wiley. Jogo, a guy who's like been, I think, a major stock down over the last year just kind of like disappeared into Spain when we've seen him with the youth national teams. he hasn't looked particularly good, I don't think. And had a really good game here, gets the winner. On the right-hand side, which I'm still not quite sure. Yeah, it's weird.

I've never seen it before. Right. And that goal probably only happens because of that, right? Because he's inverted, yeah. So something to think about, I guess. And then Caleb Wiley, like, maybe not a showcase game for him or anything like that, but did really well getting up and down that side, really athletic. kid um i wouldn't i think there's a chance he ends up getting a man's national team cap someday

yeah yeah i'd like to see him play fullback like a pure fullback and a back yeah definitely same thing with craig right like as a centerback and like a back too see what got to imagine we'll there's a decent chance we'll see that on on tuesday yeah matt's sadly not going to be with us after the tuesday game that's going to be marcus shrez and um but which is which is not sad at all It's happy. Thank you for your service, Matt. Hopefully we'll get you back for the knockout rounds, right? You know, if you want to support this podcast,

which as you may have noticed, is ad-free, join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Thank you for listening. We'll see you.