Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #406: USMNT v St. Kitts & Nevis recap

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Belz and Scuffed debutante Tim Sullivan of the Club and Country podcast discuss the goals, and mostly only the goals, in our 6-0 win over Gold Cup newcomer St. Kitts and Nevis.----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. Hey, everybody, we beat St. Kitsa Nevis 6 to 0 last night, and we are going to do a quick recap. We have a special guest filling in today. Tim Sullivan, faithful friend of the podcast who helps run a Nashville SC podcast called Club and Country, among other things. Thanks, Tim. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Bell. I'm excited to talk about a, fortunately, a match that went extremely well for the U.S. men's national team. Yes, indeed.

We don't want to spend too much time talking about this game, but we do want to fulfill our obligation to recap it. The compromise is to talk about the goals. Is that all right? Yeah, it works for me. It'll still take us a long time to talk about, maybe. Yeah, six of them. The lineups, first of all the lineups.

We had Sean Johnson and goal. Brian Reynolds got to start it right back. Matt Miasga, Jalen Neal, and DeWan Jones round out the back four. James Sands, Jean-Lucabuccio, making his return to the national. team and Georgie Mahalovich in the midfield and then Alex Sendejas, Jesus Ferreira, and Cade Cowell across the front line going into the game, anything that interested you about the lineup? Not particularly.

A Buccio at the 8 rather than maybe a position where he can be less relied upon perhaps, but it's probably a better fit for his skill set at the 6. Obviously, when you have Jim Sands, you're going to play him over Buccio at the 6, but that was the main thing. And then, of course, getting a good look at Brian Reynolds, you know, a full runout at right back is something that we've kind of wanted. Maybe against a little bit better opposition, it might have gone differently. But obviously, on his 22nd birthday, it worked out very well for him. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you could see his quality. I mean, can't really take too much away from anybody's performance, but you could see that he can do things. Well, he can do things even that Sergenio Desk can do. Like he can whip a ball in. He can, I mean, he's not the player as Sergenio is, of course, but he does a lot of good stuff in the attack. The question is, can he defend? And the grade is incomplete on that.

We were not going to learn that. Yeah. And then Bousio, yeah, Bousio at the eight, especially in a game like this, where he's got a lot of time on the ball and going to get the ball in pockets of space. He's going to flurre. in this game and he did.

All right. The lineup for St. Kitsennevis is Julani Archibald in goal and then I'm just going to go quickly through this. Roberts, Maynard, Williams, and Iblee across the back line. Rahim Somersall, North Carolina FC player and Burley

in the midfield. And then Williams, Sawyers, and Terrell across a band of three in the attacking midfield. field spots and then Freeman, the striker. Now, we should mention here, this is the first gold cup ever for St. Kitts and Nevis, so congratulations to them for that. The country has a population, it's a two island country, a population, just, you know, two island country,

kind of just east of the Virgin Islands. The country has a population of 50,000, which is not very many people. And this starting 11 had, as far as I can tell, two players with recognizable professional teams. That's Romaine Sires in the championship at Cardiff City and Rahim Somersal. I mentioned him earlier at North Carolina FC, which is a USL League one side. So we should beat them six to zero. Like that's... If not more.

Yeah. That's the deal. Yeah. Shout out to Archibald for making that not the case, by the way. Yeah, he made some good saves. Yeah. Just go straight to the goals? I think so.

Yeah. I think there's value in that. and maybe a little less value in some of the other aspects of playing against a team like this. As many of you already know, we had a three-goal outburst between the 11-minute mark and the 16-minute mark. And the first one comes on a – they all came up the right side, too. So the first one comes on a nice coordinated sequence as the ball goes wide to Reynolds. Sendejas checks back to the ball as Buccio-Meyer. makes a decisive run down the channel, into the Man City Zone.

Reynolds plays him a perfectly weighted ball to the end line. It's just, it's lovely. Jean-Luca cuts it back to the penalty marker. Ferreira dummies it as he's making a near-post run, perhaps an intentional dummy, perhaps unintentional. I don't know. And it kind of bounces over to Georgie, who meets it on a slight bounce with his left foot,

roofs it, thrashes it, no mistake, 1-0 USA. Yeah, I'm skeptical that Ferreira's dummy there was intentional. It actually looked like he might have gone for the ball and caught the foot of the defender and it prevented him from contacting the ball, which is probably he didn't plan it that way, I guess you could say. But I was excited to see Mahalovich make that decisive run. That's kind of what has been lacking from him

when he plays centrally a little bit. So that was nice to see him. Again, this is an opponent where you kind of have to make opponent independent evaluations of what guys are able to do. And that is something that is easier when you're playing against St. Kins and Nibis, but it's something that you don't see a ton from him in his more distant past. He's done it a little bit more since his move.

But I like to see that from Hilovich for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's just so much, so much time, so easy to pass through. Yeah. There's so much space. Yeah. So, like, yeah, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. That's why we're only going to do like a 20-minute recap here.

14th minute, so 13th minute, so less than two and a half minutes later. Cal wins a corner kick trying to beat his guy down the left gets tackled out of bounds. I thought Cal struggled a little bit last night, given what we just talked about. Yeah.

We can talk about that in a second, but Sendez takes the corner and it kind of goes over everybody, skips through the box to Reynolds, who kind of measures it and takes it on the half folly from outside of the box and hits a laser beam.

Low through traffic, past the keeper at the near post. It's too bad we don't. I don't have Wachie here to adjudicate this, but is it a banger? Yeah, the banger discourse is something I'm worried to involve myself in because of how contentious it can be actually. Yeah, it's, it's, I certainly like, I think it skipped right in front of the keeper. So if it's not rising as it goes in, I believe is where Wachie ended up on the,

on the final evaluation of what can count as a banger. So by those definitions, at least, I guess it's not a banger. But I enjoyed it. Is it okay to enjoy it? and concede that it might not be a bangor. That's the, that's, yeah, that's kind of how I stand, where I stand. I'm a bit of a loose constructionist on banger. You know, it's kind of how I feel in the moment.

But, you know, that's no, that's no way to live, I have to admit. All right. So 2. Let's talk about Cal real quick. What did you think of him? Because he, you know, I was excited to see him. Morris wasn't very good against Jamaica. You think, you would think Cal against these.

opponents would feast. He didn't. It's interesting because what we saw was essentially everything we've come to expect of Cowell and maybe against a team like this, you hope you see a little bit more out of him. Like the speed, the power, they're there, but he's not, the technical side of it is still in development. And some of that is like literally what he can do with his feet. Some of it is decision making.

There was one, I believe it was even before these goals where he got on the ball like in a pretty dangerous area and didn't know what to do and just. kind of whacked it into the defender right in front of them. There's one in the, uh, shortly after half time where, uh, he tried to wrap his foot around a volley and, and hit it into the 10th row, but kind of what you expect of him and,

and maybe not in the best ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well. Oh, well. I mean, he's, he's still young.

As several people pointed out on the discord, they're going to, they're going to grade older players harshly, younger players less harshly. And I, I guess I'm, I'm, I'm with that. And then the, the, the, third goal in this little flurry of goals came again up the right side at the 1520 mark. It's Reynolds passes to Zendajas kind of coming back along the sideline. He finds Buccio in a little pocket.

Buccio has has a lot of space, but he still acts quickly, receives it and plays a neat little through ball with his left foot to Ferreira, who's again making a good run. Ferreira finishes through the legs of his marker to the far post. a nice finish too. Again, just good coordination on our right side. I think what we should expect, right? Three zero. Yeah. And when Bousio is in the right places and on the ball, he's going to play like a beautiful, he has the vision when he's on the ball to make the right pass and he has the ability to play a beautiful ball. It's just against higher levels of competition, which again, this was not. It's being in the right place at the right time, having both kind of the cognitive

and athletic decision-making and ability to get into those spots against this team, you can do it. And when you can, he's the right guy who can play the ball to Ferreira. And obviously, I won't even get into Ferreira finishing discourse to say the least, but Ferreira does kind of what you would expect, or at least at the very least hope of him in that situation. Yeah. Like, I don't necessarily expect him to finish that.

I don't necessarily expect any striker to finish that chance. but at this point I am expecting him to make the good run and to get in the good spot and he seems he just does that repeatedly. There was a chance for St. Kits and Nevis off a poor Matt Miazga clearance a good volley from who was it? Taquanteroon. Okay, yeah.

Just hit it, got all of it but put it just over the bar. I think Johnson might have gotten a paw to it, but it looked like the alignsmen didn't see that. It couldn't tell there was not a super good look at it. Really? On the replays. Maybe I just was manifesting it in my mind. It could be somebody, you know, it could be somebody, you know, it's okay.

It's okay. Let's see. Miaska. I think, you know, you can give people negative grades. You can't really give them positive grades from this game. I think Miazga also gets a little bit of a ding from this performance, just a little bit messy. Maybe this is probably his worst moment of the game.

It wasn't that bad, but. Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think the one reason that you can kind of look at him and say negative is, is the things that you expect him to be good at, which are playing the ball and stuff, were not strong positives. This clearance is, obviously, it's an individual moment that's very small and he kind of just scuffs a clearance. But at the same time, he's the guy who's not going to, like, run down higher

level team so you need him to be sharp in the things that he's supposed to be good at. And this was one of multiple examples that it wasn't his night in that regard maybe. And maybe if he's not going to have his night in that regard, the stuff that you know that he's not good enough at against better opponents is potentially limiting for his long-term future. Yeah, I guess the thing I would want from him is just reliability. So when he's, so when a loose ball falls to him in the box, I want him to just pound it out of there.

Yeah. And he didn't. But onward, 21st minute, I just want to mention this one because it's a bit of a foreshadowing. It's not a goal. Busio and Zendayaas do a couple guys down in the corner. And then Zendejas dribbles into the box

and passes briskly to Ferreira's feet from not too far away. Ferreira does that thing he does so well with his quick feet, pops it up and strikes it on frame out of the air. The keeper, it's kind of right at the keeper above the keeper's head. So the keeper reacts. Archibald reacts, touches it over. But it's a good, it's like a really good take and foreshadows a goal he scores later in the game. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's one of the things like you mentioned that Ferreira is best known for. And as you also mentioned, it will pay off for later in the match. Let's see. The next goal comes in the 25th minute. It's Bousio to Mihailovich through the center. circle. So Busio kind of shakes a guy in the center circle and then plays it to Mahalovich's feet. Mahalovich plays a good first-time pass in behind for Ferreira as he gets cut down. And Ferrears 1 v1 with the keeper and Megs him.

Cool as he like. 4-0. Yeah, and it's a really good finish. Again, the Ferrer finishing discourse. It keeps rearing its ugly head at us, but there was a question certainly among the St. Kitts in the Vista, offenders if he was off sides. Hesus kind of knew he wasn't or at least acted like he wasn't, and the keeper just had nothing to do just other than get big. And he did get big, but Jesus managed to put it between his legs. And he knew where he needed to go to get it past the guy. Yeah. Yeah, he was off. I mean, he was on side by, I think, a safe distance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they misjudged that one. Yeah. Some backline struggles. Yeah, just not

good at all. St. Kitts and Nevis, not to be hard on them, but lots of giveaways in their half. Like we've discussed, very easy to pass through. They threatened a little bit, but not much.

Wy Scout had them at a tenth of a goal. You know, the stateners will say why Scouts' numbers are wrong or not accurate, but they're generally, mostly in line with other services. If you're ballpark in it,

it can kind of figure it out from there. Right. As far as takeaways from the first half. I was, we talked about them already, but Reynolds just seems to offer something different out wide at fullback. I thought Zendayaas,

who struggled in the second half was actually pretty good in the first half. Bousseo was very good. Cowell and Miazga didn't think had a great first half, but nothing terrible. Yeah, I think that's fair. With Zendajas, I think you look at what he's not the best at as a winger,

especially he doesn't have that like immediate, burst move like the Christian prolistic type of thing where he's going to be able to beat a guy on the dribble but in a game like this where his job is a bit more about connecting and and maybe St. Kitts is not really going to have the ability to to make sure that they can slow him down if he does try to burst past the guy. It's a game that is well suited for what he's good at at the position and it worked out for him. Yeah. Yeah. Although he, you know, I think he was really pushing, we're not going to talk about too much, but he was really pushing to get a goal in the second half. and I think couldn't get it, got very frustrated,

missed the frame a few times, and I think started to kind of force things, and it got uglier as the game went on, for him personally. 50th minute, Ferreira gets his hat trick. It's the thing that we tried to foreshadow from earlier. It's a short pass from Georgie on the other side of the box from the one he received from Sendejas,

but again, he takes a really quick touch. kind of around a defender receives it around the defender and then just stabs it home with the inside of his foot very quick, very deft, much like the earlier one except this one went in. Yeah, watching it live, I thought he like accidentally popped it up a little too high

and he kind of got lucky. But as you watched the many replays that they showed, he popped it up just enough to knock it over the guy's trailing leg and then like you mentioned, those quick feet to get another good solid boot through it. It's a finisher's goal. and again, I keep inserting myself into the thing that I say, I don't want to insert myself into,

but it's precisely what he's on the field to do because he has that ability, maybe more so against St. Kitts than against the Netherlands, but it's something that he's, you know, his dad is an all-time MLS player, former Columbia International. This is a guy who kind of not only has the bloodlines to do it physically, but he knows what he's doing in those situations too.

Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, people, you know, People are dogging him because he has, I guess he got his 10th goal for the national team last night. Yeah, and the other four were all in one game as well. Yeah, so seven out of the 10 are against Grenada and St. Kitts and Nevis. And that's an absolutely valid caveat on all of those goals. But, you know, if you take them each individually, they're nice goals, you know. I mean, you still got to put it in the back of the net.

And a beloved member of USMNT Twitter promised to do. delete his account if Ferreira scored a hat trick. And I don't, I don't know if, if, yeah. Let me check real quick. Yeah, he hasn't. It was a, shocker. He says, I was drunk when I made that bet and therefore not in the right head space. The bet is null and void.

How convenient. You got to get that notarized next time. For real. Reynolds gets a volley from point blank on a nice ball to the back post from De Juan Jones in the 60th minute. It's a good take. I mean, he could have, he should have, I would say, tapped it across the face of goal for Brandon Vasquez, who was wide open. Because Ferrer had come off by this point. I don't blame him for trying to smash it in their post, honestly.

Again, Stu's birthday, man. He wants to score a couple goals. Get out of there. Beautiful ball from DeWan Jones, though. I must say as well. Yeah, it was a really nice ball. Yeah, I forgot to say that. Happy birthday to Brian Reynolds.

There's a nice, real quick here, there's a nice free kick from Sonora in the 66th minute. Vasquez misses a header on a good Mahalovich free kick delivery in the 71st minute. Just, I mean, he misses by a couple inches. I'm not mad at him, really. I guess I'd be mad at him. if we weren't already up 5-0. But any thoughts on Vasquez?

He kind of was what he was, which is fine. He's a pretty good player. Obviously coming on as a second half sub, you only are going to get a limited number of opportunities. He didn't make the most of that one. It's really hard to fault the guy for missing a header by a few inches. But I actually thought the free kick service, not to dog anybody who has done it in the recent past for the full senior national team,

but this free kick service for Mahalovich and Senora as well was really nice. So that'll be something to watch. Breath of fresh air. I don't think either of them figures into a full strength squad at this stage, but it's definitely something to keep in mind as you look to, you know, figuring out better options there when the full team is back together. Yeah, I forgot to, you know, speaking of figuring into the first full strength squad and who does, and who doesn't.

Maybe long-term Jalen Neal does, you know, because he, maybe not too. Who knows? Like, he's got a ways to go. But he played a lot of nice passes again tonight. And one that happened in the first half, which I forgot to mention, is he played basically a through ball to Georgia, George, Majorovich. Mahalovich got closed down by Archibald. Couldn't really, couldn't really solve the problem.

But that's a really, really lovely ball from Neil. And he was very calm. and tidy and progressive with the ball again. Even with the caliber of competition, you look at a young guy and you say just the composure in the situation regardless of who the opposition is. They could be playing against the USL team and still seeing that he's not too small in the moment

is something that is a good step forward in terms of long-term development in evaluating where he's going to fit in long-term. Is that that really good first performance, even against a bad team. Yeah, he seems very chill. He seems like a chill dude. And then we get the Mahalovich goal.

It's a nice ball across the field from wide, from Aidan Morris to Christian Roldon, none other than Christian Roldon, who brings it down as Archibaldal closes on him, but then unselfishly and calmly lays it off for Mahalovich, who takes a touch and passes it into the empty net. So that's two assists and two goals for, So, Mojavich had a nice night for him.

And good to see Roaldon get another goal contribution. Yeah, man, the unselfishness is part of how he become a big vibes guy. So he definitely was putting it on for his teammates. And I can tell you right now that if my team was up five to nothing and I was in that situation, which I would not be, I'm taking the shop. I'm not doing the unselfish thing in that very specific situation. Yeah, it kind of makes me, not that Roll Don was amazing or anything, but Cal and Morris both struggling a little bit.

I'm like maybe it should be more, maybe it should be rolled on and send Dejas on the wings the next time we, you know, have to face somebody that we really have to fight against because Trinidad presumably will be a pretty easy game on Sunday. And at the very least, nobody has been good enough, even if you think Cowell and Morris are better, nobody's been good enough to say,

we definitely need to put this guy on the field or we definitely can't put the third guy on the field. It's a close enough, you know, talent decision that it's, hey, you know, maybe you do play the vibes guy or you do have a matchup that rolled on Fitzpestore as well. Yeah. Well, let's get out of here. Turn it out on Sunday. Can I do the events and walkie thing where I just extend for another time? Yeah, yeah, bells, one more thing.

Yeah, let's get out of here. Thank you so much, Tim. Yeah, of course. Thanks everybody for listening Where should people find you Easiest way is on Twitter At Club Country USA Okay

All right Thanks everybody for listening We'll see ya